


Cahya Stark

by Ghost_of_the_Night



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-01-13 15:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_of_the_Night/pseuds/Ghost_of_the_Night
Summary: Cahya's older brother is Tony Stark - not that many people know that, of course. She has kept to herself, not hiding from anyone but not really being noticed either.That is until she decided she wants to be found, that she wants to be noticed. And not long after that, she is working for SHIELD.The story begins at the start of the movie Avengers and journeys through Cahya's days from when New York was attacked, and perhaps delves into her past and all that she was before she was at SHIELD.





	1. Family Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This 'chapter' is supposed to be a sort of prologue, so that is why it is in third person whereas the rest of the story is in first person. Hope this clears that up!

**Family Reunion**

Nick Fury was making his way downtown to go see Steve Rogers, or as many knew him, Captain America. They hadn’t needed to call on Steve since he had woken up but this was a special case, they needed Captain America and they needed Tony Stark – Fury had sent Agent Coulson to deal with him.

He arrived at the gym that Steve was working out in, letting out his pent up emotions on a sandbag hanging from the ceiling, looking as if it was about to fly right off.

Fury stepped down into the poorly lit room and coughed. This caused Steve to stop his workout and turn to see Fury.

He seemed to be annoyed but he picked up a water bottle and drank from it, calming his momentary annoyance, “what do you need me for?” He seemed to not be that interested in what Fury had to say but he would listen anyway, he always listened. Fury walked towards the man and held out a file. Steve took it cordially, but not with a particular enthusiasm other agents had when they had been given a similar mission.

“This is just a picture of a building,” Steve said, this time more surprised than annoyed at that point in time.

“We need you to bring an expert hacker in, she is currently…”

“She?” Steve questioned, this had piqued his interest.

“Yes, she. And she is currently in hiding and staying in this building, we need you to bring her in alive and safe,” Fury explained, Steve looked back down at the picture.

“Can’t some of your agents bring her in?” Steve asked, annoyed that they had gone to him with what seemed like a trivial matter.

Fury took a stool and sat down, “you see, we have tried to bring her in three different times, and each time she has outsmarted our agents and put them all in hospital. She never killed any of them, but she escaped each time without a scratch. We believe that this time she has extra security, and we need someone who is guaranteed to bring her in.”

Steve paused, looking down at the file before handing it back to Fury, “well it seems like she doesn’t want to be brought in, maybe you should leave her be. How much harm is she actually doing? She’s not killing anyone.” Steve said wanting nothing more than to be left in peace so he could wallow in his thoughts. He was about to turn around to start his workout that was so rudely interrupted when Fury spoke up.

“Well, she has developed a software that can even bypass SHIELDs security systems, and we are worried about what will happen if her software is sold to the wrong buyer, we think it may have been already. We need her on our side and we need her to create a better security system.” Fury explained, trying to not go into the specifics for Steve’s sake, knowing he wouldn’t understand much.

He turned back around to Fury, and pointed right at him, “fine, but I will not be wearing the suit,” and then more to himself he whispered, “it’s too soon.” Fury nodded and left the conversation there, he stood up begrudgingly, put the file down so Steve would have his mission and made his way back out.

Once Fury had left, Steve went over to the file and looked at it once more. He turned over the picture and scribbled on the back was a date and time, only a day from now, and one more thing at the bottom.

‘Prepare to meet Iron Man,’

He had heard of this Iron Man from the futuristic televisions that they had, he hadn’t made up his mind about the ex-weapons dealer slash billionaire. He put the picture back in the file and left, readying himself for the mission.

Meanwhile, Cahya was sitting in her room, watching the security camera of SHIELD; watching the CCTV in Steve Rogers building; watching Stark Tower through Jarvis. She smiled, she knew they were coming, and what a surprise it would be when Tony and Steve showed up. She smiled to herself, deleting all of her files from her laptop, then destroying it completely before putting on a pot of coffee.  
She then sat, facing away from the door in a high backed chair for the ultimate reveal. She was a bit of a drama queen, she wanted to make a big deal of this. It had been a long time since she had seen him, and she couldn’t wait to see his face.

Tony had been easier to convince, he seemed ready to test out his new suit, Mark 6, in the world. when he had been informed that Steve Rogers, or Captain America, would be coming along he seemed less thrilled but still took on the mission. He arrived at the building, on the roof, and let Jarvis scan for life heat signatures.

Steve stood at the base of the building, looking up at it. He walked into the building looking like any normal person, bringing his cap down to conceal his face from the public.

When he had made it to the right floor, he saw a man dressed in a metal suit from head to toe, he rolled his eyes. This must be Iron Man, another person here on the mission from SHIELD. He walked up to Iron Man who turned around and pointed his gun at the man, seeing that it was his partner in their mission, he let his hand reach out to shake his.

“You must be Captain America,” Steve reached out his own hand and shook it, looking perhaps just a bit weirded out by the whole situation, but Iron Man just carried on not really seeming to care.

“All right, Cap, I’m getting Jarvis to scan the building for any potential problems we might run into, just follow my lead,” Iron Man said, walking down the corridor, gesturing for Captain America to follow him. Tony walked in cautiously, but nothing came up on his scanners to tell him there was anyone there. Steve, on the other hand, was less thrilled about being ordered to follow a narcissistic playboy who up until a few months ago had been selling weapons of destruction.

They found that as they went down the corridor, there was no one waiting for them. No security seemed to be there, no one to protect the girl they were there for. Tony felt a pit in his stomach, it all seemed to easy.

He gestured at Cap to stop, a few metres from the door to the apartment, “doesn’t it seem a bit weird to you that there is no security?” Iron Man asked, looking back at Captain America.

He nodded back in response, “yes, I don’t have a good feeling about it,” he said, then he continued, “what does Jarvis say?”

Jarvis had already told Tony that there only appeared to be one unarmed female behind the door. Tony seemed suspicious but went ahead and knocked down the door. When they were inside, they saw a very dingy apartment, a chair facing the window, with a girl sitting in it.

“Stand up and put your hands where I can see them!” Iron Man said to the girl, he heard a chuckle as she held her hands up and stood up but didn’t turn around.

“Whatever you say, bro.” She turned slowly around, and Tony seemed to be unable to speak, he looked at her confused, before removing his Iron Man helmet, and muttered one word.

“Cahya?” He seemed to be so shocked that he couldn’t say very much else.

“Yep, would you like some coffee? I put on a pot.” She said to him with a smile. Captain America meanwhile seemed to be confused by the interaction.

While Tony stood there shocked, Cahya put her hands down and went over to the coffee maker and poured some coffee.

“Milk, two sugars, Steve?” She asked, looking to Captain America. He just stood there awkwardly.

“Yeah, how did you…” She smiled again at him and handed him the cup which he accepted with a nod from Tony as a signal that it was okay.

He took a sip of the coffee and smiled.

“This is good coffee,” he said quietly, not sure if this is what the mission was supposed to entail. He looked at Tony and then back to… Cahya? He thought that was what Tony had said. “So…” He had caused the two to break their staring contest and look towards him, “you two know each other?” He looked between Tony and her, and she smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, of course, I’m his sister,” Cahya said, a matter-of-factly, but Steve didn’t seem to compute it very well as he ended up spitting out all of his coffee.

He pointed over to Tony, “h-his sister?!” He seemed genuinely confused and slightly distressed at the information.

“Yeah, did they not inform you of that before you took on the mission?” She asked, tilting her head and looking at Tony, he avoided her eyes on him and just stared angrily at the ground. Before anyone else could say anything, Tony stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Steve was about to follow him when Cahya coughed to get his attention. “Aren’t you supposed to be bringing me in?” He nodded, seeming to compute that he still had to do his original mission. He walked up to her and lead her out by the small of her back, probably not seeing the need for handcuffs as she was complying with him one hundred percent.

When they arrived at the jet, she turned to Steve, “sorry about all the fuss, I hope this wasn’t too much out of your way.” She smiled and Steve smiled back.

“Not too much out of my way, Ma’am.” He replied, nodding to her.

“Please, call me Cahya, and don’t be afraid to visit every now and then,” Cahya said with a smile, then Tony came up next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. But not in that nice brotherly way, it was more like a ‘you’re under my control’ way. That was the point of the mission, after all. He turned to Steve.

“Cap, I would be really grateful if you could keep her identity as my sister a secret. Thanks,” he then turned and pushed Cahya onto the jet. Steve waved at Cahya as they flew up into the sky and then it was only Tony and Cahya left in the Quinjet, apart from the pilots of course.

Tony had not said a word to Cahya, his little sister, he instead got into a heated discussion with the co-pilot on the specifications of the Quinjet all the way to the Helicarrier, annoyed immensely by the whole situation that she had been put in, she just sat there silently thinking of ways she could kill her brother (in the sisterly way). When Cahya finally was at Headquarters, she wasn’t really sure if she wanted to face Tony. It had been forever since she had seen him.

Then she was led off the Quinjet to the start of a whole different path to the one she was on merely minutes ago.


	2. The Norse Gods

**The Norse Gods**

My alarm rang at me at an annoyingly high volume, taunting me for not getting up. I groaned and went to turn it off, but realised that the night before I had put it on the other side of the room in an attempt to force myself up that morning. Alright past me, you win this round but just watch your back.

I lazily got out of bed, slugging over to where my alarm clock was trying to beat the world record for the most annoying sound known to man and turned it off. I sighed as silence filled my ears and smiled, this blissful feeling was better than sex. I made way back to bed to try and get a few minutes more rest when the intercom from hell in my room decided I would not get another few minutes of rest. Do they know how much an intercom is an invasion of my privacy and sanctuary?

“Agent Cahya, Agent Cahya, report to the Director immediately for an emergency mission,” I groaned in frustration, of course, there was a mission for me, of course, I couldn’t have just one freaking day off! I refused to get changed but brushed my hair and teeth, so I didn’t look like a huge slob.

I walked into the main control room with a scowl on my face, “what could be so urgent that you had to ruin my morning rest?” I asked loudly, rubbing my eyes as I still felt very tired. “And also, I told you to stop calling me Agent Cahya! I am not an employee of SHIELD, and I am certainly no agent!”

Nick Fury looked at me and seemed to disapprove, “why are you not dressed?” He didn’t answer the question or acknowledge my mini rant at him; this is what I expected honestly. He had decided recently that he wanted me as an Agent of SHIELD and I flat out declined - I was good with being a private contractor but not an employee. To try and change my mind he started to get everyone, and I mean everyone, to call me Agent Cahya. He was looking distastefully at my current attire that consisted of Harry Potter pyjamas, but I was not having it.

“Because you asked for me at 6:30 in the morning!” I said, throwing my arms up to show him that I was not very happy with the situation either, that I was exasperated by having to be awake this early. It is not natural, who in this world is truly happy to be awake at 6:30? I was definitely not happy, nowhere close, I was more in the region of angry, annoyed, murderous, you know, the usual.

A few of the crew members looked at me wearily, probably the pyjamas and the shouting that made them a bit worried. They should really be used to this by now, this wasn’t my first time in my pyjamas and certainly was not my last. The shouting wasn’t that rare either considering Fury’s constant harassment, but the combo was quite a rare occasion, and by rare I mean only this one time has it ever occurred in the view of other people. 

“Listen, we have an urgent matter on our hands so I have called the Avengers in, which means that your _friend_ will be here.” He said, not really giving much care to the matter, I nodded sleepily until my brain processed what he was saying. Of course, he couldn’t say that Tony was my brother, he had been asked by Tony to keep it quiet and honestly, I didn’t care anyway.

“But I thought that _he_ wasn’t apart of the Avenger’s initiative, you said he was volatile,” I explained, my nerves going up as I thought about seeing my brother again after so long. I had kept an eye on him now and then; he was currently working on a Mark 7 for his suit.  

Fury turned to me, “and now he is, I’m your superior here so don’t question my decision,” Fury lectured me and I put my hands up in defence.

“Fine, fine, I’ll go and get dressed, but just so you know, you are not my superior, we are coworkers. I comply with your needs and in return, you give me access to the latest technology you can get ahold of. _Just so_ you know,” I said, backing up as I said this to him, looking Fury straight in the eyes.

Once back in the place I call my room, I got changed quickly, putting my hair up into a ponytail and before I knew it, I saw a Quinjet land down and ran outside to meet an old friend. I managed to reach him just as Agent Coulson was leaving.

“Steve!” I shouted, he turned around to see me and smiled, I ran the rest of the way up to him so I could talk normally, hugging him upon arrival. It felt like it had been an age since I had seen Steve, he had gone into seclusion, trying to get used to the world. I had tried to help, show him the way, teach him the rights and wrongs of this world such as fries in ice cream being amazing even if everyone else rejects it - he had not agreed with me on that one but I was going to turn him. I stand by my decision in every way. It was then that I saw Natasha also walking over.

“Hey Natasha,” I said when I reached Steve, she smiled and returned my ‘hello’ with a nod. “How’s it going, Steve?” He smiled and nodded at me.

“It’s going alright,” he said, as we walked along the deck. Natasha made some remark about Phil having the vintage playing cards of Captain America and I smiled. He was really proud of them, when he learned I had met the amazing Captain America, he hounded me for details - honestly, he was the biggest fangirl of Captain America, I thought it was sweet. We walked along until I saw a man looking rather lost ahead of us. That was when Steve called out to him.

“Dr Banner!” He waved over to him and Dr Banner walked over. I had heard things about him, seven PhDs! He was one of the smartest men I had ever heard of and so now it was time for me to be the biggest fangirl of Bruce Banner, A.K.A humble super genius (or anti-Iron-Man as I like to call him). I bounded up to him excitedly.

“Oh my god! You’re Doctor Banner? I have read like all of your papers on Gamma Radiation, I especially loved your paper on Anti-Electron Collisions! What insight! And I can’t believe you have 7 PhDs, you are like my idol!” I said, smiling and enthusiastically shaking his hand.

I felt a hand go onto my shoulder and saw that Steve was gently pulling me back by the shoulders saying, “Calm down, Dorothy.” I cast him a smile for stopping me before my idol decided I should be committed to a facility for the less mentally stable.

I whispered back, “whatever, Scarecrow.”

I turned back to Dr Banner and smiled awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck. “Sorry, I just really admire you.” He gave me a smile and a nod and greeted Natasha and Steve who was smiling at me. Probably smiling because I looked so stupid, fangirling over Dr Banner.

As we were talking, I decided to casually mention an important bit of information, “guys, you might want to get inside, it’s going to get a lot harder to breathe out here,” Steve and Dr Banner looked at me then went over to the side of the deck to see it begins to fly, over the water.

Natasha led Bruce inside and I stayed back a distance with Steve, who decided to again bring up a conversation we had a thousand times.

“Why am I the Scarecrow? I’m not that stupid,” he pouted which honestly was the most hilarious thing I had ever seen, and so I went into my usual response.

“We have been through this Steve, you can’t be the Lion because you definitely have courage and you can’t be Tinman because (a) you definitely have a heart,” and I whispered the next bit into Steve’s ear so no one else can hear, “and (b) my brother is _obviously_ Tinman,” I heard him chuckle at the remark I had made a hundred times before.

“I suppose, but why can’t I be the wizard or something?” We had made our way inside to the warmth by this point and were only a little ways away from the control room. I turned to him, stopping our walk.

“You can’t be the wizard because the wizard was a fake, who used his knowledge to fool everyone around him. And okay, he was not evil but I don’t think you could ever be fake or manipulative. You’re too kind,” He smiled down at me and ruffled my hair.

“Okay, Agent Cahya!” He then proceeded to walk quickly way, I turned and glared.

“Fury got to you too?! I can’t believe this, you traitor!” I shout after him while jogging into the control room around the time I said ‘you traitor,’ causing everyone to turn to me. I smiled at everyone, nodding at them. Then Nicholas Fury turned around, “Gentleman,” he said, and I coughed from the side hearing a similar cough from his other side that came from Natasha, he eyed me, “and ladies,” he expanded. I smiled and nodded.

He walked over to Dr Banner, extending his arm. “Doctor, thank you for coming,” he shook his hand and Dr Banner gave a polite smile.

“Yes, thank you so much, finally nice to be around actual geniuses,” I say, smirking at Fury who rolls his eyes, knowing my love for the dramatic and hyperbole.

“Thanks for asking nicely. So… How long am I staying?” He asked, I was also curious how long my idol would be here for, I too looked towards Fury for the answer, he hadn’t even told me that Dr Banner would be here so then when I met him I was not prepared and made a fool of myself.

Nick replied, “once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you’ll be in the wind,” he nodded to Dr Banner who had another question to fire back at him. I watched the exchange between them, Dr Banner explaining what he was going to do, being all impressive with his expert knowledge. He mentioned something about putting together an algorithm and my ears pricked up.

Then I felt a hand on my upper back, and Steve said next to me, “now don’t scare him while you’re in the lab, he might think you’re crazy, Dorothy,” I scoffed and nodded, _what cheek!_ Steve left to look around the ship without another word, knowing my eyes were playfully glaring daggers at him, other agents’ eyes following him as he walked towards Fury’s control panel, Maria Hill giving him a sidewards glance.

I tuned back into the conversation with Fury and Banner, ignoring Steve. “Yes, that sounds good,” Fury said, “Agent Cahya will be helping you with that, she did help design the software you’ll be using in the lab. Agent Romanoff, take them both to the lab.” I followed Dr Banner to the lab, I was talking animatedly about his plans to find the Tesseract, explaining the science I knew behind it and how he was a genius.

When we got to the lab, he turned and smiled at me, “not to be rude Agent…”

“Cahya.”

“Yes, Agent Cahya,”

“No, I mean just call me Cahya, I’m not an agent no matter how much Fury wants my superior ass on his team”

Dr Banner nods, and continues, “okay, Cahya, could you just be a bit quieter? I need to be able to think,” he said, I smiled and just nodded, going to the other workspace. I stayed silent for a minute.

“Oh, just one last thing, if you have any trouble with any of the software, just ask me, I’ll fix it in a jiffy. And I’m sorry for earlier, I wasn’t told you were going to be here so when my idol turned up I kind of panicked. I’m not usually _that_ annoying,” I smiled, and he nodded smiling back. I heard him mumble under his breath but couldn’t catch what he said. We began to work in silence when I heard the intercom go off in the lab.

“Agent Cahya, prepare for a mission, the subject has been found.” I grumbled at the name, he was never going to relent, so I thought about coming up with another course of action to tackle the ‘Agent Cahya’ problem, storing the thought away for a rainy day, the intercom then cut off. I ran out of the lab like a child who had just been told they were no longer grounded, I ran full speed towards the suit room as it was the quickest way to get to the jet bay, as I ran in I saw Steve there staring at his suit, which slowed me down to a stop.

“Been a while?” I looked at him, he looked back at me with a half smile that wasn’t really sincere.

“Last time I was in it, I lost my best friend in the whole world, you can understand why I’m hesitant.” I looked at him and saw his pain written across his face. I sighed and patted his shoulder.

“That wasn’t the suits fault, people are going to need a symbol of hope if what I’m dreading with this Loki guy comes true. Captain America meant a lot to a lot of people and if your friend was here he would tell you to suck it up and put the suit on, Cap.” He didn’t smile but he went towards the suit and took it out of its cupboard, looking at it. I nodded and quietly said, “I’ll leave you to change, changing rooms are through that door right there,” I pointed to a door not too far from the cupboard where his suit was being stored. He nodded, not offering me any words but I didn’t need any. I left out of the other door, making my way towards the jet bay.

I saw Natasha there and saluted, as we silently got to work to co-pilot the jet, one of my better talents - I had learnt while I was at SHIELD, as part of my conditions for helping them; I had always wanted to learn and now I wasn’t half bad.

“So where are we going exactly?” I asked, Natasha filled me in on the details that we were going to Germany to catch the God of Mischief Loki. I nodded and carried on preparing for take-off.

As we took off, I looked back at Steve, “okay, Steve, make sure you give him hell,” I smiled back at him and he smiled, giving me a small salute. We made our way there as quick as possible, Cap ready to jump out.

As he jumped down where Loki was, and watching the encounter enthralled me so much I almost didn’t move when he aimed a blow from his sceptre at us, we swerved in time to not get hit thanks to Natasha actually paying attention. She shot me a warning glare, telling me not to slip up again. I just stuck my tongue out at her and helped her steady the jet.

Then, over the intercom, I heard a voice that brought a lump to my throat.

“Agent Romanoff, did you miss me?” Tony had said over the intercom. I looked down to the ground to see none other than my brother down there, in his Iron Man suit, aiming his guns and lasers at Loki, ready to shoot if he moved. I smiled, that’s my brother. As annoying as he is, he’s got style and also an amazing feat of science called his Iron Man suit. Loki put his hands up and before I knew it, he was on our Quinjet, going back to headquarters with us.

As they loaded him on to the Quinjet, I got really intrigued.

“Agent Romanoff, can you take the wheel for now?” I asked, she nodded but looked at me with a look that asked ‘why?’ I simply shrugged in response and made my way to the back of the Quinjet.

I saw my brother, nodding I decided to speak, “hey,” I said quietly. He ignored my existence completely, and perhaps trying to fill the awkwardness, Steve replied to me instead. Perhaps trying to save the humiliation of being ignored, or just couldn’t deal with the awkwardness himself.

“Hey Cahya,” he smiled, I smiled back thanking him wordlessly.

A voice then rose up that I hadn’t heard before, “well that seemed extremely awkward,” I turned to the culprit, none other than Loki, Prince of Asgard. His smirk made my stomach drop like something was pulling it down, like a bowling ball, he looked so evil with such evil intentions. But normally, the evil didn’t phase me, I suppose maybe because he exuded power.

I smiled at him nonetheless, “Yes, probably was. So, you’re the infamous Loki, God of Mischief, Prince of Asgard,” I said, “I must say, you don’t quite live up to my expectations, I thought you would be… more difficult to catch.” I smirk in his direction but he’s just smiling at me, not phased by my words.

“I think you mean King, sweetheart.” I rolled my eyes, my stomach feeling like it now had two bowling balls weighing it down, I didn’t want to be called ‘sweetheart’ by him, not in any way. 

“I wouldn’t call me sweetheart if I were you, I’d hate to punch that pretty face of yours… On second thought, I’d love to punch it,” I said, snarling at him.

“Oh, so you’re the feisty type are you?” He smirked at me and I couldn’t contain it and punched him right in the nose, he flinched at the contact but that’s all that happened - he was a God and my mortal strength wasn’t enough to break his nose, no matter how much I wanted to. He held his nose and looked up at me with a seething glare, he might have even retaliated if he weren’t cuffed. It wasn’t the pain that made him seethe but the blatant disrespect from someone he believed to be beneath him.

I leaned down to him, “I have friends who can hurt you properly, be lucky it was me who was punching you or you may have internal bleeding by now, they are very protective of me,” okay, so this was a bluff, I didn’t have any friends who could really hurt him… Apart from maybe Steve but he wasn’t the unnecessary violence type so I imagine he wouldn’t be much help, but the God of Mischief didn’t know that. His face showed a grimace and I smiled satisfactorily and went back to co-pilot the jet when a loud roar of thunder went off, stopping me in my tracks.

Cap then piped up, looking at Loki, “What’s the matter, scared of a little lightning?” He asked, I turned to see Loki looking upwards with a rather scared face.

“I’m not overly fond of what follows,” he said, and suddenly I squealed.

“Oh my god! You mean Thor right?! I’ve read a lot of Norse Mythology! Are you really the father of a wolf and a serpent? Because that seemed rather ridiculous to me,” I said, Loki looked at me like I was crazy for being excited but Norse Mythology had intrigued me since the God of Thunder had been spotted on Earth only a year prior going by the name of Thor. I mean, a God, he was a God and that was just plain cool.

The others look at me before we heard a loud bang on top of the Quinjet, we all looked up to the source of the noise. Then, Cap and my brother sprang into action, Tony put his helmet back on and Cap grabbed his shield. I just grabbed onto the side of the jet, smiling like a crazy person.

The back door opened and there was Thor, Tony tried to stop him but he used Mjölnir to stop him, he grabbed Loki and before he could fly off, I quickly grabbed onto Loki as well. We can’t let a prisoner escape, however, it hadn’t occurred to me that I was not at all equipped for field work, my only use was piloting a jet. Before I could really ponder on it though, I had to make sure I grabbed firmly onto Loki so I didn’t fall to my death as Thor flew us far away.

I was soon propelled through the thunderstorm until we landed on a high rock. I landed with a thud and rolled over. _Ow, that hurt_. But it didn’t seem like Thor had taken much notice.

Loki must have known as he must have felt me latch onto him.

“Where is the Tesseract?” A sexy deep voice asked, I sat up from where I was laying and saw Thor looking down at Loki on the ground.

I decided to just listen to their conversation, as Thor still hadn’t noticed me.

“Oh I missed you too,” Loki sarcastically replied but it seemed to anger Thor.

“Do I look to be in a gaming mood?” He replied, obviously not at all happy with his brother.

Loki sat up a little, “with the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did your father have to muster to get you here? Your precious Earth.” Loki said all this while slowly getting up, but Thor was getting angrier by the second and yanked him up by his collar.

“I thought you dead,” Thor said, seeming less angry. I could hear the pain in his voice, the pain of losing someone you loved that I knew quite well. The pain in my side began to increase when I lost focus on the conversation just reprimanding myself in my own head how much of an idiot I was being, my face scrunched up in pain but I remained silent and tried to listen in again.

Loki looked at him with cold eyes, and in an ever colder voice asked, “did you mourn?”

Thor looked into his eyes and replied calmly, “we all did… Our father…” Thor had started but Loki sought to correct him.

“Your Father,” he pushed Thor’s arm off him and looked at him with sadness and anger, I thought that perhaps some of what the Norse Mythology books said was true, perhaps he was actually a Jötunn, Laufeyson. I kept this thought to myself as I continued to observe, trying to distract from the immense growing pain in my side. “He did tell you my true parentage, did he not?” Loki began to walk away, out of my sight so I could only see Thor. Thor ignored this comment, he did not see them as anything other than a brother.

Thor turned around and replied, “we were raised together, we played together, we fought together! Do you remember none of that?” I couldn’t see either of them at this point so I walked around slowly, the pain in my side increasing tenfold when I stood up. I let out a low groan but no other sounds came out of my mouth, I made my way over to see them, hiding behind a different rock where I could see them. I saw that Thor still hadn’t noticed my presence.

Loki turned to Thor in anger. “I remember a shadow,” the pain was so clear on his face, a horrible memory from his childhood, “living in the shade of your greatness. I remember you tossing me into an abyss, I who was, and should be, king!” He seemed to be angry, perhaps angry at himself, I didn’t know.

“So you take the world I love as recompense for your imagined slights? No, the Earth is under my protection, Loki.”

Loki then laughed, “And you're doing a marvellous job with that, the humans slaughter each other in droves and you just pulled one out of a flying vehicle to have a brotherly reunion, probably breaking something in her puny weak form.”

I came out from behind the stone, “hey!” I said angrily, “I am not puny!” Then proceeded to grab my side, proving his point - which caused me to scowl, angry at proving him right.

Thor turned to see me there, clutching my side in immense pain, trying to ignore it. I waved and he turned back to Loki.

Loki continued, “you sit idly by while I mean to rule them!” This took Thor’s attention back to Loki, almost making him forget I was there once again.

“You still see yourself as above them?” Thor asked his brother.

Loki replied in the most obvious tone, “well, yes.” I rolled my eyes, _stupid god with his stupid hair and stupid antlers and stupid outfit._

Thor stepped towards Loki, “then you miss the truth of ruling, brother, the throne would suit you ill.” This seemed to anger Loki the most as he replied angrily with a shove to his brother, walking back up in my direction, to the edge of the cliff.

“I’ve seen worlds you have never known about! I have grown, Odinson, in my exile!” Loki turned to Thor, utterly ignoring my presence there. I just watched them both, not noticing my pain as I was once again engrossed in the conversation. “I have seen the true power of the Tesseract, and when I wield…” Loki had continued but Thor interrupted him.

“Who showed you this power?” He quizzed, walking towards Loki. “Who controls the Would-Be-King?” He said, Loki seemed even more riled up, shouting his next words in anger.

“I AM A KING!”

Thor grabbed him by the shoulders and shouted back, “Not here! You give up the Tesseract! You give up this poisonous dream!” Thor held onto Loki’s cheek, tears seemed to well in Loki’s eyes. “You come home,” Thor said meaningfully, reaching out to his brother emotionally.

Loki smiled, and looked at his brother, “I don’t have it.”

Thor recoiled in anger, he seethed at Loki, summoning Mjolnir who was beside me. Loki continued as Thor held up Mjolnir, “you need the Tesseract to bring me home, but I’ve sent it off, I know not where.” He said, a hint of victory laced his voice. I glared at him, not that he was looking at me, _stupid god with his stupid hair and his stupid antlers and stupid outfit._ It had almost become a mantra as I looked at him, anger rising in me any second he caught my eye.

Thor pointed the hammer at him, “you listen well brother, I…” But before he could finish, he was tackled and flying away with none other than my brother. I looked at where he had been moments ago in shock.

Then Loki said something that I didn’t want to laugh at, but kind of made me laugh, “I’m listening,” he commented with a bit of glee in his voice.

I chuckled and his attention was brought back to my existence.

“So, human, I suppose I should deal with you now, and your little defiance earlier,” he looked at me with a sick grin. I smiled with my hands up.

“Oh come on now, I’m pretty sure I broke a rib on that fall, and I don’t even think I broke your nose!” I exclaimed. He walked towards me, his smirk never fading.

“Just know, human, you are beneath me, I am going to be your King, and Kings demand respect and punishment to those who do not give it.” He was right in front of me now, looking down at me, but then he turned at a loud noise and sat on the edge of the cliff.

Not understanding his actions, I followed, realising he was watching the fight between Thor, my brother and Steve. I sat down a few feet from him and watched as well while peeking at him watching the fight, trying to determine what he was thinking but I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking. My attention was turned back to the fight. I flinched when Thor hit my brother with the hammer, each time he did, feeling like it cut into me just a bit. By the middle of the fight, I was covering my ears and had my eyes plastered shut, not really wanting to watch at all.

It wasn’t until about 10 minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up to see Steve had tapped me on the shoulder, he seemed okay and I smiled and hugged him. “I’m glad you’re alright,” I said into his shoulder.

“Yeah, me too,” he chuckled, putting his arm lightly on the small of my back, almost like it wasn’t even there. I felt the pain in my side pierce through me, causing me to lose my grip and fall over - only worsening the situation.

Steve bent down to me, “Cahya?! Are you okay?” He fretted over me, I smiled at him.

Chuckling, I replied, “yeah, I’m fine, just remind me that flying for me should be strictly confined to aeroplanes and jets and such and should exclude Norse Gods.” He smiled at my comment and helped me up.

They had loaded Loki back into the carrier by this point and the rest were on board. Steve walked me to the carrier and once we were on board, Natasha took off.

I looked towards Tony, “are you alright?” I asked but he just ignored my question and glared out of the window. I nodded, assuming he must be okay and turned to the more interesting of characters we had.

I smiled widely, “you’re Thor!” I exclaimed, extending out my hand to shake his. He hesitantly took it and shook it enthusiastically. “And that must be Mjölnir! I am so excited to finally meet you. When I first heard about you, I was so impressed.

“You’re a God, like an actual God and that is sooo cool, I am so impressed. And seeing you do that thing with the thunder and lightning! It was magical!” I squealed. Thor smiled at me.

“Yes, it is quite impressive, isn’t it? You are an amusing maiden.” He said in his deep sexy voice, chuckling a bit.

I nodded enthusiastically till I heard Natasha yell, “Cahya, if you could get back to your actual job instead of fangirling over Thor that would be great!” She yelled back to us, I smiled again, waving goodbye as I made my way back to co-pilot again even though I was significantly slowed by my probably broken rib.

I looked to Natasha sheepishly, “sorry.”

“No worries, just don’t leave hanging like that again, I thought perhaps you had been hurt badly.” She said, I sheepishly smiled and decided to not mention my injury. In all the commotion, it had slipped my mind.

I felt over my ribs and felt a sharp pain as I ran over one of them. Yeah, it was probably broken.

I kept it from Natasha till we got to the Helicarrier where I went straight to the ward. They bandaged me up and then proceeded to reprimand me about my reckless behaviour. I just smiled and nodded and waited for it to be over.

As I went back to the control room, I saw everyone was assembled there, they seemed to be waiting for Nick, I sat down and waited with them.


	3. Brothers Are The Worst

**Brothers Are The Worst**

We sat there in the control room, not really saying much. We were all watching Loki on the screens in front of us; he was locked in the cage that was meant for someone else. My eyes were glued to the screen, watching Loki’s every movement.

“In case it’s unclear,” Fury started at Loki, “you try to escape. You so much as scratch that glass…” There was a pause, Loki walked over to the edge of the cage, looking down, presumably at the drop below. “30,000 feet,” Fury continued, “straight down, in a steel trap. You get how that works?”

I put in my headphones, not listening to their conversation but instead staring at him. Watching how he moved, how he seemed to glide as he walked. His arrogance was apparent by his every move, but also his elegance. He was refined and poised, it was fascinating just watching him walk.

He had the grace of a ballerina but his attitude left something to be desired. It wasn’t until the video feed went away that I even paid attention to the rest of them and took out my headphones.

“He really does grow on you, doesn’t he?” Dr Banner said sarcastically.

The team didn’t respond, all seeming to acknowledge his sarcasm on the inside, then Steve piped up, “Loki's gonna drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?”

Thor, until Steve had brought up this point, had been spaced out, probably deep in thought about his brother. He then turned and replied, “he has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.”

This seemed to hit a lot of us, the thought of an alien army attacking the world seemed so unreal, so scary and dangerous and unbeatable. Steve had decided to voice his shock to what Thor had said so the rest of us didn’t have to. “An army? From outer space?”

I decided to speak up, “So he’s building another portal, that’s what he needs Selvig for.” I said, contemplating Thor’s words and connecting dots in my head.

“Selvig?” The name seemed to catch Thor’s attention, and Dr Banner piped in to answer before I could.

“He’s an astrophysicist,” Dr Banner replied, clearly familiar with the man’s work.

“He's a friend.” Thor bristled, perhaps at the idea of one of his friends under Loki’s control, or his friend being thought of so flippantly as a scientist and not anyone of emotional value. He knew few Midgardians already, so Loki having one he knew was obviously to hurt him.

“Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours,” Natasha explained further, I looked towards Natasha. I knew from my research on her that Clint had brought her to SHIELD, that he had been sent to kill her but instead gave her another chance; I suspected Natasha was more upset about him being controlled than she let on.

It had all been circling in our heads, the one thing that Steve decided to voice out loud. “ I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here.”

I nodded, “it did seem weird that while you guys were fighting, he didn’t seem to want to escape. He just sat and watched you fight. I was sat not too far from him and he looked to be enjoying himself…” I didn’t know how to describe my encounter with them, how he had threatened me before completely ignoring me the next second. I couldn’t seem to voice my thoughts on his lack of escape attempts, on how easy it was to capture him, how it seemed he didn’t even put up a fight.

“I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him.” Bruce seemed to not care about Loki’s reasons for being here, and he seemed to be right. Loki did seem crazy, but did that make him any less dangerous?

Thor seemed to take offence, slightly raising his voice, “have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother.”

Natasha seemed to not care that Loki was his brother or ‘of Asgard’ as Thor put it, “he killed eighty people in two days,” she said, having a clear rationale.

Thor’s reply was quieter and more of a question than a statement, “he’s adopted?”

Dr Banner then changed the topic of conversation to science, “Iridium, what did they need iridium for?”

“It’s a stabilizing agent,” Tony and I said at the same time, I turned to see he had walked into the room with Agent Coulson, his eyes staring daggers at me.

“It means the portal won’t collapse on itself, as it did with us,” I explained further, Tony walking around the table.

He looked at me, daring me to explain further. Probably satisfied with my silence, he explained further, “Also, it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants.”

By this point, Tony had captured the attention of everyone, except myself who was happily ignoring everything he was saying. It wasn’t until I noticed he put a hacking implant on the side of the control desk that I got interested.

My brother and Dr Banner began talking science, and with everyone focusing on them I went over to the control panel and began to put his hacking implant programme into quarantine.

 

When I finally turned back around to rejoin the conversation, I saw Fury walking in and I nonchalantly moved over towards Steve, trying to look as if I wasn’t just quarantining Tony’s programme. “Dr Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him.” Fury looked towards Dr Banner and Tony. Then he looked at me, “you too,” he said

Then, both Tony and I refused, catching the attention of the team. “I wasn’t asking,” Fury replied to our refusals.

“Fine,” I said, slumping against the railing, not happy with the arrangement.

“Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon.” Steve interjected, saving the awkward silence after our little show.

“I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys.” Fury said, clearly annoyed by the God of Mischief’s actions and their lack of solving the problems at hand.

Thor then decided to speak up, “Monkeys? I do not understand.” Steve looked at me and then smiled, turning back to the group seeming very pleased with himself.

“I do! I understood that reference.” I smiled and patted him on the shoulder as if to say ‘good job’.

Then Dr Banner, Tony, and I made our way to the lab, trying to locate the tesseract that Loki had hidden. I sat at a desk further away from them, doing a bit of searching in the database for what Tony would be looking for.

I kept quiet as they figured out how to find the sceptre, any time Dr Banner was going to ask me a question, Tony would instead ask him what he was not sure about. I don’t suppose I minded though, it left me to do some in-depth searching, finding exactly what the Tesseract was going to be used for.

When Tony had left the lab, Dr Banner made his way over to me.

“Agent Cahya,” he started.

“I said, you can just call me Cahya, Dr Banner, I’m not really an Agent of SHIELD, they just keep trying to convince me to do it and so Fury has resorted to calling me Agent Cahya to annoy me until I agree to be an agent,” I said, a smile on my face.

“Then, Cahya, you should call me Bruce,” he said, giving me a genuine smile.

“Alright, Bruce, what is it you came over here for? Something Tony can’t help with?” I smiled, hoping to help Bruce, and perhaps pick his brain on a couple of his papers and the concepts I didn’t fully understand.

“Well,” Bruce paused, he seemed to be nervous, rubbing the back of his neck, “I was wondering what was up with you and Tony, I mean he is so… hostile towards you. What’s that about?” He seemed very curious. I just put on a fake smile.

“Oh it’s nothing, he just doesn’t like that I’m as smart as him. We sort of bumped heads the first time we met, and so he’s just being Tony. Don’t let it get to you, I’m not bothered by it.” I gave him one more smile to drive home my point, he nodded and walked away from me when we heard the door open.

Tony walked in and looked at the two of us but decided to ignore it, not before he gave me a very hard glare. I looked down at my work and relaxed again when he began to talk to Bruce again.

I heard the door open across the room and looked up to see Steve walked in, “Hey! Are you nuts?!” He seemed distressed and I looked up to see Tony staring at Banner with a look of puzzlement, holding a mini-shocker in his hand.

“Holy shit, Tony, trying to kill us all?” I panicked, Tony ignored me and talked to Banner.

“You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?” He seemed to not really take it seriously, considering we could currently be in a situation with a giant green guy trying to crush us if Bruce hadn’t stayed calm.

“Is everything a joke to you?” Steve seemed genuinely distressed, I got up and walked over, bumping his shoulder lightly to let him know I was there. He gave the briefest of smiles at me and then returned to Tony, who looked even more displeased that I had walked over.

“Funny things are,” Tony said with a smile that didn’t seem genuine.

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offence, doctor.” Steve looked at Banner and then back to Tony, their staring contest challenging each other silently.

“No, it's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things.” Bruce smiled, probably trying to diffuse the situation. I smiled back, trying to be reassuring that this was just going to happen no matter what we did. I’m not sure if a smile can say that much, but I tried.

“You're tiptoeing, big man. You need to strut.”

“Tony!” I exclaimed, not believing what he was saying, “you can’t just say that, what if _ strutting,  _ as you call it, causes him to stay as Hulk, never get control back!” I was shocked at his casual nature to the problem.

“It’s okay, Cahya, I can control him.” I nodded at him, not feeling much safer with Tony around trying to get the Hulk to come and play.

“Well, you need to focus on the problem, Mr Stark,” Steve interjected, stepping slightly in front of me, probably trying to subtly stop me from throttling my brother on the spot, in a totally non-murdery way that is.

Tony seemed to take offence to his insinuation, “you think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables.” Tony had a point, but up until now, I had his programme under quarantine so his search wasn’t going anywhere.

“You think Fury's hiding something?” Steve suddenly seemed a bit less angry, more curious if anything. His stance seemed to tense, but not in anger towards Tony - at least I didn’t think it was towards Tony.

“He's a spy. Captain, he's  _ the _ spy. His secrets have secrets.” Tony pointed at Bruce, “it's bugging him too, isn't it?” Banner looked bewildered, not really wanting to get into the conversation.

“Uh...I just wanna finish my work here and…”

But before Bruce could finish his sentence, Steve spoke up, “Doctor?”

“A warm light for all mankind, Loki's jab at Fury about the cube.” Banner reluctantly replied, his thoughts now becoming words. “Well, I think that was meant for you. Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it’s still all over the news,” Bruce looked at Tony and then to Steve.

Steve seemed to be computing it all, “the Stark Tower? That big ugly ...building in New York?”

Banner replies immediately, explaining his reasoning, “it's powered by Stark Reactors, self-sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?” Banner turned towards Tony and by this point, I was feeling more like a silent observer of the conversation than anything. I didn’t really know what to say.

“That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That’s what he’s getting at.”

“So, why didn't SHIELD bring him in on the Tesseract project? I mean, what are they doing in the energy business in the first place?”

Tony arrogantly replies, “I should probably look into that once my decryption programme finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files.” I scoff at this, knowing currently his programme is doing nothing of the sort at this moment in time.

Tony goes to check his decryption programme but stops walking. “Well, that’s not good.” Tony looks down at the screen then back up.

“Um…” Bruce begins, “what’s not good?”

Tony looks back at banner then back down at the screen, “my programme has been put into quarantine, I can’t access any of the files until the quarantine is lifted.” I silently smile to myself, the one thing I am better at than Tony Stark.

“I'm sorry, did you say...?” Steve still not really having caught up. Tony, still looking concerned, still gives a reply.

“Jarvis has been running it since I hit the bridge or has been running it till it was quarantined. If I can lift the quarantine, then in a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide.” Tony was typing something into his screen but was again stopped from bypassing the security in SHIELDS servers.

Tony’s head shoots up, “I need to find the person who quarantined me… I can’t break it myself, Jarvis seems to have been trying since it has been put on it. Who’s the Head of Security Technology on this ship?” Tony turned to Bruce, looking for an answer.

“I-I don’t, ummm, I don’t know,” Bruce says, looking bewildered. But Steve turns to me.

“Aren’t you SHIELDS hacker expert? When we brought you in a year ago, that’s what he said he wanted you for,” Steve looks at me for confirmation but I can see Tony’s head has the wheels turning, and then he looks at me and explodes.

His eyes glare at me as if they could kill me if only he had enough willpower to, “You!” He storms towards me angrily and I take a step back, but he is quickly held back by Steve. “You always need to ruin things for me!”

I looked at Tony, my mouth trying to find the words to say, but all I could come up with was, “it’s my job,” I meekly replied, not really knowing what else to say when faced with an angry Tony.

Tony struggled against Steve, trying to get loose, but Steve wasn’t letting go, “let go of me, or so help me God!” Tony begins but Steve cuts him off by shoving him away and putting his hand up for him to stop.

“You think this is the way to get her to lower the quarantine? Shouting? Of course, your first thought is violence. I mean, why don’t we just ask nicely or find another way around it?” Steve says but then I see Tony turn to Steve, his eyes glowering.

“What is that supposed to mean?” He is slightly calmer but still volatile. I decide for the sake of Steve I should probably speak up.

“I’ll lower the quarantine,” I say, causing everyone to turn to me, “but on one condition.”

Tony looks at me and then smiles a not-so-nice smile that makes my stomach drop, “oh! You have a condition! Prey-tell, what is this condition that you so wish?”

At this point, I’m too scared to answer, knowing it will only make him madder, instead, Steve turns to me. “What’s your condition?” He looks at me with a smile and seems to want to diffuse the situation.

“I-I…” I couldn’t seem to be able to say it, the words stuck in my throat. All that was running through my head was the thought that it was a stupid condition, “I wanted Tony to stop ignoring me,” I whispered; Steve, who was standing closest to me, heard what I said but Tony and Bruce didn’t.

Steve looked at me with some sort of pity in his eyes, not the pity you don’t want, but more of the kind of pity that makes you feel comforted. Understanding, that’s the word, he seemed to understand how I was feeling without uttering a word. He turned back to Tony and kept his hand outstretched as to stop him from charging at me.

“Well?!” Tony asked, gritted teeth, “what did she say?” Steve also seemed to be at a loss, the burden of telling Tony my wish now on his shoulders rather than mine.

“She said that her condition was that you had to…” He paused, trying to find the best way of telling Tony my request, “...to stop ignoring her.” He seemed to be staring at Tony, judging his reaction. Tony took a minute, all of us waiting in anticipation. Then he turned to me.

“No.” It wasn’t loud or angry, it was emotionless and that hurt a lot more. Tears began to make their way to my eyes, blurring my vision. Steve turned to me and blocked my view of Tony and Bruce so I could only see him - not that I could see much.

He looked down at me with a sad smile and put his hand on my shoulder, “do you think maybe you could do it for me?” I nodded immediately and turned to go to my laptop, lifting the quarantine and then running out of the room, not wanting to face Tony.

I heard Steve calling after me but I just ran harder until I realised I’m outside of Loki’s holding cell, I hid behind a pillar and waited for Natasha to leave, sneaking in behind her.

I didn’t really know what I was doing, it all seemed to happen so fast, but I ended up right in front of Loki, tears in my eyes.

“Oh look, my favourite human has arrived,” Loki snarked at me, I quickly wiped the tears from my face. “I’ve already had one of you from your merry band of heroic fools, I don’t need another.” I snarled back at him.

“Well if it isn’t the adopted brother,” I said back, this caused Loki’s anger to swell as he hit the glass causing me to jump. I calm my heart down and look at him again, he seems to want to kill me with his eyes, as Tony did earlier.

I realised that I had lashed out and said something I don’t think Loki was expecting, “sorry, I’m just having a bad day.”

“Clearly,” Loki replied, less angry and more annoyed by my presence.

“Don’t you just hate older brothers? They are the worst sometimes,” I said with a laugh, hiding the actual pain inside.

Loki seemed to look at me with curiosity, “Older brother?” He seemed to ask himself this question rather than myself but soon comes to a realisation, “Stark? What was his name? Tori, or Terrance or something like that. All your human names are so forgettable.”

“How did you know?” I’m shocked he knew, we had kept it a secret for so long, from everyone except Fury, Steve and of course Tony knew.

Loki looked at me with a smirk, “the one thing I am great at is reading people, and your interactions with that fool in a metal suit were quite… noticeable.” I nodded, taking in the information.

I felt angry at Tony, and apparently my brain had not caught up with my mouth as I ranted to Loki, “he’s just so arrogant, you know? He completely ignores me, only giving me glares when I upset him. I see him try to bypass the security and quarantine his program, only for him to blow up at me when he finds out. This is my job! Doesn’t he get that? And so after he attempted to kill me or whatever he wanted to do, I say I’ll unquarantine his programme under one condition. And he couldn’t even agree to that!” Finishing my rant, I saw Loki looking at me with a curious look. Suddenly, the ship jolted, I looked around and saw Loki smirking.  _ He must have planned this. _

I went over to the screen and logged in to see that one of the engines had failed. I looked back at Loki who is just smiling at me like all was okay and the ship wasn’t under attack - although I suppose that to him it was a rescue mission, not an attack.

He paused, just looking at me for a second as if contemplating his next words and once he seemed resolute in what he wanted to say, he smiled. “How would you be interested in a job?” This caught me by surprise, but I replied anyway.

“I already have a job?” I said hesitantly, it seemed to come out as more of a question than an answer; not able to comprehend what he actually said. Loki smiled at me, opening his arms wide as to gesture to himself.

“I can give you a better one, or I can force you, your choice.” I looked at him, smirking at me.

I waited for a moment, thinking about what I should do, then I reply, “I suppose I would rather not be forced. So sure, why not?” Loki almost seemed taken back by my answer.

Loki looked at me like I was a new toy in a toy shop, “you are an interesting human, I’ll give you that. Most of your  _ friend  _ would have fought me until the end... And yes, I do hate my older brother.” Loki replied to my earlier question, at that point we heard a loud roar and I saw Loki smirk evilly. We both knew that meant the Hulk had been released.


	4. Battle of New York

**Battle of New York**

Loki looked at me and interrupted the silence that brought my brain out of panic mode, “well, if you are working for me now, would you mind opening the door to this cage? If you don’t, my men will.”

He looked at me expectantly, with a smile that in a different circumstance might be quite charming.

I made my way over to the panel and opened the door to his cell, he stepped out in such a magnificent way as if to say ‘here I am, your King.’ I rolled my eyes and just turned to him.

“So, what now?” He smiled at me, looking around the room.

“Well, my men are waiting to pick us up, some will be in now to release me, which you have already done. But first, I must trap my brother in this cell.” I looked at him astonished.

“Th-Thor, you must trap Thor in there?” I pointed my finger over to the cell, “well, that seems quite mean to me,” I said more to myself, although Loki heard it too.

“Mean? He deserves it, he is the one that dragged you out of that jet and probably broke one of your bones.” He said, a matter-of-factly. I looked at him astonished. That wasn’t how it went at all, Thor wouldn’t do that on purpose, at least I didn’t think that Thor would given how much I know - although, that wasn’t much anyway.

I pointed at him, an angry look on my face, “I was dragged out of that jet because I made a stupid decision to not let your stupid ass get away. And I imagine Thor probably cares more about whether I am injured than you do,” he seemed to be annoyed by my response.

He turned to me and squinted his eyes at me, maybe he was trying to be intimidating or shrewd - I didn’t know. “You should take care how you speak to your future King,” I looked at him and scoffed.

“Oh sorry, your highness,” I did a slight curtsy, staring at him with disgust the entire time, sarcasm dripping from my voice, “I just thought I would tell you the facts, next time I’ll tell you a nice story, would you prefer that?”

His arm reached for my neck and lifted me up, cutting my air supply off. I hit his arm in an attempt to get him to let go. “Now listen here, you will treat me with respect or when I get my sceptre back I will force you to, understand?” I nodded instantly and he let go of me, causing me to take big gulps of air as I coughed. My lungs sighed in relief as they filled with air.

As I shakily got up, some men with guns ran in the door that were definitely not SHIELD agents. They pointed their guns at me, but Loki put a hand up unenthusiastically. “She’s helping us, but keep an eye on her until I get my sceptre.” One of the men came over and grabbed me by the arm, and apparently, I hadn’t learnt my lesson from earlier as I decided to pipe up.

“Well, this is nice, I get an escort and everything. How fancy!” Loki looked at me, and then the guard holding me put a hand over my mouth to shut me up.

Then Loki did something I had only read about in books, he made it look like he was in the cage and that the door was opening. One of the guards walked over to the control panel but then he seemed to vanish, probably hidden by Loki’s magic.

Thor ran into the room, looking around to see Loki at the door to the cage. I tried to warn him but with my mouth covered, the guard put his other hand around my neck, not tight enough block off air but enough to keep me back. Thrashing around made my rib hurt so I was restricted in movement anyway.

Thor fell for Loki’s trick and ran at him, only to land in the cage. As he turned, we became visible to him, and the door closed in on him. He looked around and saw me, and he seemed worried for a flash before he turned back to Loki angrily.

Loki just looked at him with an unimpressed look, “are you ever not going to fall for that?” The ship suddenly rocked and there was a moment of silence before Loki smirked, “the humans think us immortal,” Loki started, swaggering over to the control panel. “Shall we test that?”

I couldn’t let him do it, I just couldn’t, so I bit the man’s arm that was holding me and in the split second that he let go, I ran over.

“Loki, you don’t have to do this, he’s your brother.” I tried to reason with him but his henchman got a hold of me again, this time restraining my arms and keeping his limbs away from my mouth and teeth.

Just after I was restrained again, we heard one of the henchmen fall to the floor and low and behold, there was Agent Coulson, in all his glory, holding a fucking huge weapon. “Move away please,” this grabbed Loki’s attention as he put his hands up and raised them to show he was complying with his wishes. “You like this,” Phil cocked the gun as a gesture to the weapon who’s maker was obviously compensating for something - if you get what I mean. “We started working on the prototype after you sent the destroyer. Even I don’t know what it does.”

Phil began to fire up the weapon as if ready to use it, and It wasn’t until I noticed the real Loki sneaking up behind him that I did anything, I yelled, “Phil, look out!” But it was too late. Loki had impaled him with his sceptre like a shish kabob. I heard Thor yelling as well but it felt like it was so far away.

Phil was dead, he was dying, he wouldn’t survive this. I couldn’t concentrate, nothing seemed to be in focus, I felt like someone close had been ripped from me. I barely moved when Loki sent Thor to his death, another person I couldn't believe was leaving this world. Loki was walking away when I heard Phil’s voice.

“You’re going to lose,” he said, his voice was quiet, he was losing his energy, Loki turned to him, smirking.

He softly replied, “am I?”

“It’s in your nature,” Phil said immediately, sat on the floor, leaning on the wall, looking like life was leaving him so quickly.

Loki smirked once again, “your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky, where is my disadvantage?” I could hear the smirk in his voice, that is how smug he was. He had advanced on Phil by this point, strutting about as if he owned the place.

Phil looked up at him, “you lack conviction,” and then before the henchmen holding me or Loki could comprehend, he blasted the huge gun at Loki, knocking him back through a wall. I looked on in shock to hear Phil say, “so that’s what it does,” before closing his eyes. Tears streamed down my face, I didn’t want anyone dead, and now two people had died in front of me, Phil and Thor.

Loki recovered from his brutal hit and grabbed me, ordering his last henchman to get us out of here. I shrugged my arm from Loki, “I can walk myself, been doing it since I was one.” He rolled his eyes and walked behind me, the henchman in front of me. We soon found our way to the jet that was waiting for us, Loki’s sceptre already on board which he grabbed immediately, and then we were setting off as the helicarrier still fell from the sky.

I sat down opposite Loki, “so what is it exactly you need me for?” He looked at me with that creepy smile and then looked directly in my eyes.

“Well, let me just say, as of this moment we are heading towards Stark Tower.”

Then it dawned on me, “oh,” I said, “so you want me to make your invasion of Stark Tower easier?” Loki smiled a less creepy smile.

“You humans aren’t so dumb after all,” I rolled my eyes, and looked back at him with a judging glare.

I raised my eyebrows, “okay, first things first, if I am going to help you into Stark Tower, I am going to ask you to call me Cahya, not Human, not Servant or anything similar. Secondly, I’ll go in first, disable the cameras and then your guys can go in and do whatever - whether that is brainwashing them with your weird glowy stick or incapacitating them, but I refuse to help if you kill them.” Loki looked at me curiously.

“You know that I can just force you to do what I want with this sceptre mortal?” He seemed to be a bit astonished by my demands.

I scoffed, “well, you might have to because you’ve already failed my first request. But you won't, and do you know why?” I smirked at him this time and I saw a spark behind his eyes, he leaned forwards.

“Why?” He seemed intrigued, I smirked at the thought again.

“Because it will hurt Tony all the more if I’m working for you willingly.” He smirked at me, looking me right in the eyes. Of course, I wasn’t doing this willingly but I didn’t want to be brainwashed or controlled so I was keeping my wits about me.

“I like you, you’re intriguing to me, Cahya,” he leant back in the carrier.

I leant back also, looking at him, “well, it turns out you can learn a name, colour me shocked.” I put on a pretend shocked face, smirked and then turned to look out of the jet window. I noticed they were heading in a rather roundabout way to get to Stark Tower.

I got up and walked to the cockpit, only to hear the mighty God of Mischief calling after me, “Hey! Where are you going?” He followed me to where the pilots were flying the jet extremely inefficiently. There were only two things I was really good at, programming and flying. I tapped the co-pilot on the shoulder.

“Get up, you’re going in the wrong direction.” The guy looked up at me impassively and then turned back to the control panel, obviously one of Loki’s minions. I rolled my eyes and turned to the God who was stood just a bit too close for comfort.

“Tell him to get up and let me fly, either that or to turn the jet approximately 20 degrees Eastwards, that will be quicker.” He looked at me, his eyes sparkling once more in intrigue. I huffed, realising I wasn’t getting through and threw my hands up.

I pushed past Loki, “fine, ignore me, get there in your own sweet time. I imagine you’re in no rush,” I stomped back to my seat, annoyed by the lack of skills the pilots had. A piece of hair had fallen in front of my face and I tried to blow it out of my face but it wouldn’t budge. I heard Loki telling them to do what I said and the jet started to move in the right direction.

I rolled my eyes, “so, I say that you let me in first, as Jarvis knows me, and then I disable all the security protocol and block any communications to and from the building, then you take over the building with only a few measly humans,” I said this bit with air quotations, making fun of how he called us humans. Then, I continued to say three words that I didn’t realise in the near future would bring me so much laughter, “bing-bang-bosh.” I swept my hands together in that motion that must do when you say ‘bing-bang-bosh’ concluding my plan and looking towards Loki to see his reaction.

Loki looked at me like I had said something weird, “bing-bang-bosh? What is this bing-bang-bosh?” I couldn’t help but laugh each time he said ‘bing-bang-bosh’, it was totally hilarious. He sounded so funny saying it but my laughter settled down when he gave me a glare as signal to shut up. “And I will be giving the orders, Cahya,” he seethed my name through his teeth - obviously still deeply offended by my laughter.

I stood up and did a mock curtsy, “whatever you say, master.” He grinned at my sarcastic name for him and I gave him a withering glare that perhaps to him was not so withering as he didn’t stop grinning but instead decided to go over the plan after I sat back down, which was just what I had suggested in the first place with a few more details on how exactly they were going to take over the building.

Loki then turned to me, “finally, how do we know we can trust you?” I looked back at him, not really sure how to answer the question, I shrugged.

“You’re just going to have to, I suppose, or you could use that sceptre thingy on me if you’d like, although I must say I’d prefer if you didn’t; mind control is not a kink of mine if you catch my drift.” He seemed to take in what I said.

“If you don’t want me to use this,” he held up the sceptre to gesture to it, “then I suggest you come up with a good reason for me to trust you,” he looked closely at me, examining my every move, my every breath.

I looked back at him, “you could always send someone in your team with me, but they’d have to dress differently to get past the guards. I could probably convince Jarvis that they were a friend of mine or something. And then, if I fuck up, they can kill me.” Loki seemed to take in what I said, and pondered for a moment.

Then he responded, “that should suffice, but it shall be me who accompanies you, I’ll use my magic to make me look more human,” I rolled my eyes and turned to him.

“Fine, whatever.”

It wasn’t many more minutes until we were approaching New York and Stark Tower. They dropped us off on top of another building before flying off to circle around until I did my thing. We walked towards the entrance of Stark Tower.

Before we got there, Loki pulled me aside. “We are just walking in the front doors?”

I looked and him and laughed, “yeah, of course, I promise they’ll be nice.” I turned, rolling my eyes, and walked confidently into the front doors at the base of Stark Tower. I nodded to the guard at the door, “hey, Ron, having a good day? How’s the family?”

He turned to me and smiled, his eyes briefly looking over Loki - who he seemed suspicious of even if he didn’t look like Loki.

“Yeah, Cahya, our little one took her first steps the other day, would you like to see?” He took out his phone and I watched his little girl take her first steps before getting nudged in the ribs by the elbow of a certain Asgardian. I rolled my eyes.

“She’s adorable, but I’m just in for a quick update is all Ron, brought along my… friend, if that’s okay. You know the drill, no telling Stark.” Ron, the guard, gave me a mock salute at my request and I walked to the elevator, Loki trailing behind me.

When we were alone in the elevator, I heard a familiar voice. “Welcome back, Miss Cahya,” the voice said, I smiled.

“Nice to be back, JARVIS. Take me to Tony’s floor would you? I have a friend with me this time.”

JARVIS replied quickly, “Of course, Miss Cahya, should I keep your presence from Tony again?” I nodded to his question without saying a word and his voice left the elevator travelling upwards. It was only after we had arrived at Tony’s penthouse suite that Loki said anything.

“Why isn’t Stark allowed to know you’re here? I mean I understand why now, but why is it a common occurrence?” I looked back at him as I made my way over to the nearest interface.

I rolled my eyes, “Tony has no idea I have ever even been at Stark Tower, he thinks that he created JARVIS all by himself, but I’ve been sneaking in ever since I caught wind of Tony working on a natural language AI. I had to get my hands on it, and didn’t realise I would end up being the helping hand Tony needed; I secretly helped work out most of the kinks in his programme, I am the better of us two at programming, after all. Anyway, Tony and I don’t have the best relationship so I just come in secret - technically my word overrides Tony’s in JARVIS’ system, I am - in a manner of speaking - top dog.” I smiled back at Loki before grabbing an earpiece and putting it in my ear to be able to talk to JARVIS easily. I disabled the security protocols when JARVIS popped up.

“Miss Cahya, I have detected that you are disabling the security protocols, should I be concerned?”

I smiled, tapping on my earpiece to turn it on, “No, JARVIS, no need to be concerned. I just need to update them and I can’t find the problem without stripping them down. It will only be temporary.” I turned to Loki and winked, he smirked and sat down on a sofa, seeming rather relaxed.

“Of course, Miss Cahya, sorry to disturb you,” JARVIS signed off and I turned to the interface, linking my earpiece with the jet’s radio frequency.

I smirked, “all right, henchmen, I have dealt with my end, you can land,” and not too long after I heard the whirring of the plane as it landed on the building. I unlinked my earpiece from the rest of

Loki’s henchmen and tried not to look suspicious as I connected my earpiece to SHIELD’s communication system.

“So,” I walked towards the god, smiling innocently as m heart beat a mile a minute. “Why exactly did you choose Stark Tower as your base of operation? I’m sure there are more… inconspicuous places for you to hide.” I looked towards Loki, seeing his reaction.

Perhaps it was his sense of superiority but he stood up and held his hands out, “oh, you mortals can’t see it but this tower has the only energy source that would be possible to open the portal, to open the portal that will end in my rule over you as your King, Cahya” he stepped towards me, perhaps to exert his power. He did give this aura of someone much more powerful than myself. I ignored when he called me a mortal, and it was when he said my name the second time he addressed me that caused a voice to burst through my earpiece.

“Cahya? Why can I hear Cahya and Loki?” I recognised it as a worried voice of Steve. It almost made me smile but I kept my cool, ignoring the voice in my ear.

“Do you mind if I put on some music?” I said, trying to distract the God for as long as I can, “your men are upstairs setting up the portal, you can afford to take a rest, you are going to be King after all,” I continued, trying to appeal to his nature of wanting to be superior. He eyed me before waving a hand, probably to signal that he didn’t really care, before turning back around.

This is when he turned into his true self, with his antlers and weird staff and everything. I shrugged, and moved over to the console once more, putting on some loud obnoxious sound. While I was a little far away from him, I whispered - hoping the others could hear me.

“Are you on your way here yet? I’m currently in Stark Tower with Loki,” I whispered to the group I was hoping was listening.

That was when I heard Tony, “how exactly did you get into my tower anyway? JARVIS hasn’t notified me of any breach.” I tensed, not really wanting him to know, but I sighed knowing I would have to tell him eventually.

“That’s not important, are you on your way?” I heard a ‘yes’ come from Steve and then I replied, “okay, I’m going to turn off my earpiece now before Loki gets suspicious or I give it away.” I turned off my earpiece before I could hear the reply that I knew Steve would give.

He would definitely be against it. I turned back to Loki, removing my earpiece and setting down before dancing to the music, acting like I didn’t have a care in the world.

Loki turned to me, “please, turn this awful music off, this is nothing like the music on Asgard.” I nodded.

“JARVIS, music off,” I didn’t get a reply but the music ceased so I knew he heard me. “Sorry, what kind of music do you have on Asgard?” Another question to distract him, hopefully stopping him from noticing if the team showed up.

“Our music is more elegant, and you can dance to it in a much more… civilised way,” his tone was judgemental but I ignored me. I nodded.

“JARVIS, play some classical music, a waltz if you like,” the music started up again, “something like this?” I turned to Loki, and he looked at me.

“Yes, very much like this,” he smiled, maybe reminded of home, or maybe he just liked being in control of the situation - even as little as the music selection apparently needed to be approved. I didn’t know if he knew I was distracting him, but he extended his hand towards me.

I looked at it, not knowing what to do, “care for a dance?” I looked back at him shocked.

Confusion evident on my face, “you want to dance with me? A mere mortal?” He looked at me with a smirk.

“You may be a mere mortal, but you are fair in appearance and I would like to dance, so humour your King while we wait for the portal to open.” It sounded like an order, and before I could come up with an excuse not to dance, he grabbed my hand and dragged me towards him; one of his hands on my waist, the other hold my hand.

As much of a psychopath he seemed to be, he was quite elegant. He was always elegant in the way he walked and talked and he seemed to glide when he danced. I kept up pretty well, he led really well and it was quite fun until we heard a loud bang coming from above. Loki did not seem to be phased by it, but he let go and walked outside without looking at me as if dancing with me meant nothing - which I suppose it did - all the while a smirk plastered on his face.

It was then I saw Tony walking down the landing platform, and I quickly turned to music off, waiting for them to make their way inside. I watched as Loki walked dramatically inside, his eyes fixed only on Tony.

Loki was the first to speak, “please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity,” Tony gave a small chuckle, and then retorted in a very Tony-esque manner.

“Actually, I’m planning to threaten you,” his hands placed behind his back nonchalantly. I was stood at the side of the room, and I saw him give me a sideways glance, nothing written on his face, which was surprising as there wasn’t even disgust.

This had caused Loki to smirk, “you should have left your armour on for that,” which sparked an idea in my head. I knew although Tony was not aware of my knowledge, that he was working on a suit that he could call to him. As they continued their encounter, I made my way over to the bar, in search of some bracelets without looking like I was up to much, thankfully the two mega-divas were too engrossed in each other to notice I had put them on the table. I looked towards Tony, hoping at all that he might look at me.

I thought I caught him glimpse at me, so I mimed putting on a bracelet subtly, then walked over towards Loki.

“Would you like a drink?” Tony asked, making his way over to the bar where I had once been, smiling on the inside that he got my message, I moved further towards Loki. Loki gave me a sidewards glance, and smirked - I seemed to him as if I was on his side.

“Stalling me won’t change anything,” his smile seemed relaxed as if he had nothing to worry about, but Tony interrupted him.

“No, no, no, threatening,” Tony gave him just the briefest of pauses to get his point across, then sauntered in his way over to the bar, “sure you don’t want anything? I’m having one,” Tony took a bottle from the bar and poured himself a drink.

Loki turned from him and stared out of the window, as I looked at Tony he tilted the bottle up, silently asking if I wanted a drink. I gave the briefest of nods and he poured another. It was all weird, Tony acting somewhat civil towards me, I didn’t know how to react, it was weirder than the idea that aliens were about to invade New York. Loki had been saying something but I wasn’t listening until Tony retorted again, seeming very sure of himself.

“The Avengers,” Loki took another step towards him; his eyebrows furrowing together in confusion. I sidestepped my way towards Tony for my drink - in dire need of one in this situation, Tony shrugged and rolled his eyes, “that’s what we call ourselves. Sort-a-like a team, ‘Earth’s mightiest heroes’ type thing,” Tony handed a drink to me and I took it gratefully, taking a large swig.

I didn't focus on what was said next, I just took another big gulp and finished my drink, sauntering over to the bar to get another.

The next thing I heard came from Loki's mouth, “I have an army,” he sounded so sure if himself, that he would win, but Tony replied with as much conviction.

“We have a Hulk,” I watched from the bar, my second drink vanishing in a matter of seconds since I had poured it. My head felt fuzzy and my attention was slipping from the situation till a large bang caused me to jump. Glass was shattered everywhere and Tony wasn't in sight. His suit them shot out of some sort of hidden room or cupboard and flew down to him, where he later flew back up to shoot Loki.

I looked back at Loki, the fuzziness in my head not subsiding. I took another drink and downed it before walking over to Loki.  
“You okay, Mr King dude?” I asked, giggling at my name for him. He grumbled and got up, pushing me aside causing me to lose my balance and fall on my butt. I proceeded to pout and begrudgingly got up again.

I looked outside and saw Loki in all his glory, reindeer antlers and all, marvelling at what he had wrought then Thor appeared in front of him.

I got bored and sauntered over to the bar one more for my fourth drink, not wanting to deal with that shit any longer.

As I made my way back to the fun spectator sport that was Loki and Thor, I saw Loki stab his own brother before hitching a ride with the Chitauri.

I looked astonished and rushed over rather ungracefully towards Thor, “you alright?” The god nodded at me, I boxed back in understanding and took a step back only to find nothing there. I began to fall when the good grabbed my hand.

“Careful, young maiden,” his choice of address for me made me once again giggle and he smiled before whipping his name around and magically flying us down to the ground where Steve was.

I smiled at him, “Thor, why have you brought her down here?” Steve's speech was broken as he was also fighting the Chitauri at the same time.

Thor replied indignantly, “she was in the hands of Loki,” as if that was enough to explain why a very drunk me was now giggling in the middle of an Avengers v Chitauri fight.

Steve replied, again his speech broken by the fighting, “take her back to the tower, as word as it sounds that is probably the safest place for her.”

Thor grumbled something under his breath but grabbed me by the waist and flew me back up to Stark Tower. I giggled again, “you know, you're hot. Like not my type or anything, but I think you're hot.” Thor looked pleased as he set me down on the sofa in Tony's penthouse bit. “Ooh, this sofa is making me feel sleepy, too bad the fighting is happening. Why is fighting so loud,” I found that I was saying this to myself and Thor had promptly left. I rolled my eyes and went over to the counter to get an earpiece.

Being drunk, this took me way longer than I would ever care to admit, and I got JARVIS to help out in connecting me to the team.

What I heard next made me almost throw up, the alcohol not helping in the slightest. “Stark, if you can hear me, there's a midsole heading your way,” Tony replied but I only heard buzzing. My ears wouldn't work from shock.

I stumbled over to the window and looked out onto New York to see Tony flying the missile into the portal. It was only then I screamed, “NO!” But Tony had down through the portal.


	5. Shawarma with Friends

**Shawarma with Friends**

I had almost fallen through the open glass where Tony had earlier been thrown when a hand grabbed me back. I looked around to see Loki there, and this caused me to say almost immediately “you know you're the second God to save me from falling today, right?” Loki looked thoroughly battered and bruised but his eyes looked at mine, curiosity swirling as if to ask what I meant. I shrugged and then remembered Tony and stiffened.

I turned back to see Tony falling quickly through the sky and signed in relief as soon as the Hulk caught him to soften his landing.

I felt the hand that had grabbed me to stop me falling slip and I saw Loki lying on the floor unconscious. Whatever had beaten him up must have taken a toll on him.

I dragged him away from the window to see, on my way, a giant Loki sized dent in the floor. I shrugged and placed him back in his dent. I sat down next to him, completely exhausted from the trauma that is my life. As I looked up I saw the rest of the Avengers standing in front of me.

I smiled lazily, “yo, Avengers, what’s up? Oh, Cap! Nice to see you again, you told Hunky God over there to bring me up here right?” Then I spotted Tony, “oh my god, Tony! You’re alive,” I launched myself at him, hugging his shoulders. He did not reciprocate the hug, “I thought you were dead and I didn’t know what to do and then I almost fell to my death and Loki caught me and then he fainted and then you came and now I’m hugging you and oh my god it has been such an emotional day,” I rambled on and Tony did something I didn’t expect, he patted me on the back.

I didn’t really have a filter on, anything I thought just came out of my mouth. I heard Steve chuckle and come over to give me a hand, “how much exactly have you been drinking?” I giggled and let go of Tony when we heard a groan and Loki moved. The rest of the Avengers pointed their weapons at him.

“Wait, whoa guys, just wait, remember he saved my life,” I said, putting my hands up, a couple of them grumbled.

“He was the one that kidnapped you and put you in danger anyway!” Tony was the one to exclaim this and it again took me by surprise, although my drunk brain didn’t care.

It was then that I heard a voice I hadn’t heard before and turned to a guy with a bow and arrow, “I’m sorry but what the hell is going on? Who are you and how do you know Tony?” The question hung in the air, my mouth opening and closing like a fish with no words coming out. I turned to Tony to look for an answer and he just sighed.

“Okay, honestly now is not the time considering I almost just died, but if you must know, she is my sister,” Tony finally said. I stared at him like he had just said that the world was made of jelly beans.

But someone else seemed to want to say something, “called it!” It happened to be Bruce who had said this, I still couldn’t take my eyes off Tony.

Then I piped up, not being able to keep my mouth shut anymore, “so, you’re finally okay with everyone knowing I’m your sister?” The subject had always been approached with an attitude of ‘who even needs to know’ and now he was admitting it to everyone? It didn’t seem right.

He turned to me, “yep,” was all he said, then he turned to the rest of the group, “so what are we going to do with Reindeer Games over there?” We all turned to Loki, who was sat up, looking at us. Thor moved towards Loki and dragged him up, and it looked kind of painful, as he held him up.

“You can all relax, I shall deal with my brother,” Thor remarked before turning back to us, still holding Loki.

“Stark, you said something about shawarma?” Tony then nodded, his face turning to a smile.

We all made our way to the shawarma place that Tony had recommended, on the way a SHIELD agent met us with what was kind of a muzzle for Loki. Once Loki was thoroughly restrained, we all sat down in the shawarma restaurant.

We were all eating shawarma, Loki sat on a separate table, not saying much. I turned to Thor, “you think I could take off his muzzle thing and his cuffs and give him some shawarma? He did save my life,” Thor looked from me to the rest of the team, who all shrugged and didn’t say much. A small nod came from Thor and I made my way over to Loki with food.

I took off his muzzle thing and his cuffs, only cuffing one of his hands to the table, “here,” I shoved the food towards him, “it’s actually quite nice for  _human_ food,” I said. I sat opposite him and began to eat my shawarma with the elegance of a hog.

He looked at me, and then to the food and then hesitantly picked it up, examining it. I rolled my eyes, “I don’t think you are in any place to judge it, didn’t your mother ever teach you to try something before you say you don’t like it?” I looked at him expectantly, he just looked back at me and smirked.

“Well, as a Prince of Asgard I was never served peasant food,” he snarked, I looked towards Thor.

I waved to get his attention, “hey, God of Thunder, can you punch him for me? He’s being an ass.” Thor chuckled but shook his head and continued eating.

But he did reply to me, “you should try this food, brother, it is quite good. And if you are disrespectful to Lady Stark again I will grant her request,” I saw Loki roll his eyes but bring the food to his lips and try it.

I stared at him, watching his reaction, he saw me staring and swallowed, “see anything you like?”

At this, I rolled my eyes, ever the flirt he seemed, “yeah, your shawarma looks extremely nice, and if you’re not careful I’ll take it and eat it myself.” I gave him a fake smile and tilted my head to the side to look as innocent as I could. He sneered but took another bite, staying rather silent.

Natasha then piped up, “so, Cahya, how exactly did he get into Stark Tower?” This caused Tony to look up and look at me.

“Actually, yes, how did you? Jarvis didn’t even warn me of anyone unauthorised in the building, and how did you get past my security staff without an ID?” He seemed extremely curious.

I was going to reply when Loki decided that his silence had to be broken, “she knew your security guards and apparently this  _JARVIS_ thing you keep referring to sees her as the ultimate authority, she disabled all the security protocols and told the JARVIS not to warn you.”

Tony raised an eyebrow and looked at me, looking both curious and perhaps a bit angry. I put my hands up in defence, “okay, in my defence, JARVIS is more my creation than he is yours. Didn’t you ever wonder how his bugs were fixed whenever you got back from holiday?”

His eyes narrowed on me, and I stood up, rubbing my arm nervously, “well, I kind of began to sneak in when I heard about you creating JARVIS and I got to know your guards and so it kind of just became a thing… I meant to stop after that one time but I just couldn’t, JARVIS is like my baby.”

Tony then decided he had heard enough, “ _your_ baby? I created him!” I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.

“Well, actually we both created him, but you didn’t know that so…” I trailed off in my thinking and then changed the topic, “why is everyone allowed to know about me suddenly anyway? Last I checked, you didn’t want to be associated with me.”

Guilt flashed through Tony’s eyes but then he stood up and pointed his finger at me, “this is not a topic that we should be discussing in front of friends, big brothers orders,” I rolled my eyes but obeyed and sat back down in front of Loki again.

I glanced over at him and muttered, “big brothers, am I right?”

This caused a chuckle to come out of Loki’s mouth, and I smiled at that, at least we had something in common. Once he had finished his shawarma, I put his cuffs back on, in hindsight I should have put on the muzzle on first because his commentary was uncalled for. “If you wanted to be this close to me darling, all you have to do is ask.”

Then, Tony stood up, “Hey! That’s my sister you’re talking to,” he looked towards Thor and gestured over to Loki, “do something about him, would you?” Thor gave out a hearty laugh.

“Would if I could.” Then a ping rang from my phone and I pulled it out and looked at it, an evil smirk spreading on my mouth.

I turned to the rest of the gang, “you guys need to stay here for another 10-20 minutes and I'll be right back! Don't move!” An evil cackle slid its way out of my throat and caught the attention of a certain friend.

“Oh my god,” as the realisation dawned on him, “don't you dare, Cahya!” Steve exclaimed standing up. I shrugged and bolted out of the Shawarma place and down about  6 blocks to a vintage store.

I walked in, a bell ringing in my arrival just above the door. “You have it?” I asked the store clerk who knew me too well.

“Yes, Miss Cahya, took a hell of a lot of effort to get it here. It's one of only four still in pristine condition. Want to try it on?”

I nodded enthusiastically team in the back, grabbing the vintage garment on the way and putting it on. “I'll pay you handsomely for this, how much do you want?”

The store clerk paused for a minute, “4,000 should do it, hell of a rare item to get my hands on,” I nodded and paid the man on my card and then promptly ran out of the store back down to the Shawarma place, and stormed in, much to the horror on Steve's face while confused looks filled the room.

Steve stood up exasperatedly, “I can't believe you actually found one,” but before he could continue further, I started to sing.

“Who's strong and brave, here to save the American Way?” I heard Steve beg for me to stop but my grin just grew as I carried on, “who vows to fight like a man for what's right night and day?” Steve by this point had walked over and put his hand on my mouth.

I, being the child I am, licked his hand to get him to let go, he thankfully recoiled and I smiled wider until a voice could be heard.

“What the hell is going on? And what are you wearing?” Tony's voice rang out, I peered round Steve and looked at him.

“I thought it was obvious, I'm mocking Steve about his show when he first became ‘Captain America - Star Spangled Man’. This is what the girls dancing behind him wore and they sang the song too.” I saw Steve give me a death glare when laughter rang out among the team. “Wait, I have an even better song from his cartoon,” I exclaimed.

“No, she doesn't,” Steve she's through his teeth, not angry but perhaps annoyed.

“Yes, I do! It goes like this.” I did a few coughs from the back of my throat and began to sing, “when Captain America throws his mighty shieeeeeld! All those who chose to oppose his shield must yieeeeld!” At this point Steve grabbed me and hauled me over his shoulder, walking me out of the shawarma place as I continued to sing the song on his back.

He walked me around the corner and put me down, his hand on his nose on frustration. “Must you mock me so, Dorothy?”

I looked up at him, “yes, you're my friend, therefore it's my job, Scarecrow.” The nickname I gave him always wore him down. He sighed and looked down at me, less annoyed.

“That skirt is very short,” I looked down and notices it's shortness too for the first time. I fidgeted with it trying to pull it down but to no avail. “Alright Dorothy, let's take you back, but no more singing,” he playfully warned as we walked back around the corner to the Shawarma place. As we walked in, everyone’s faces turned to us.

“Okay, what  _exactly_ was that Cap?” It was Tony once again who had decided to voice his concern. I rolled my eyes and answered for Steve.

“Relax, Tony, I was annoying him so he took me away before he could get more embarrassed, I admit it was a little…  _excessive_ dragging me out of there but it’s not the first time and I don’t imagine it’s the last. But wait until I put my hair in curls and do my makeup and look proper 1940s, then I will truly embarrass him!” I heard a chorus of chuckles, apart from Tony and Steve.

Tony eyed me with scrutiny, “that skirt is waaay too short… I thought the 1940s were supposed to be conservative, what the hell is it you’re wearing?” He seemed angry at the length of my skirt and I raised my eyebrow at him, so this is a challenge.

“Okay, firstly, the skirt is not too short, I like it. Secondly, what does it matter if it is too short? When have you ever cared about how I dress? Thirdly, I already told you it was a showgirl outfit so of course, the skirts are short.” I cocked my eyebrow at him at the end of my speech, hands crossed and stared at Tony, daring him to challenge me. He just looked back at me with an equal glare.

“I just fell out of the sky, saving the entire planet from an egomaniacal supervillain hell-bent on owning the Earth,” I looked back at Loki and saw a scowl on his face, well… I wasn’t sure it was a scowl because his mouth had the muzzle but his eyes didn’t exactly look happy or cheerful. “and you’re questioning me?” Tony finished, challenging me to argue with him, little did he know I could do this all day.

I had noticed that the rest of the Avengers were just staring at us during our little tête à tête, probably too worried about getting their heads ripped off to speak up. “Oh? Just saved the planet? I think it was a team effort - I mean it wasn’t me who helped but these guys,” I did a big sweeping gesture to the rest of the team, “definitely helped, thank you very much, and does that really mean you get to play the protective older brother? After what you’ve put me through, I should be kicking your ass. But no, instead I graciously let you live without a good ass whooping.” I glare at him again, wondering what his inevitable come back will be.

My little flare up at him caused Tony to stand up this time and point a finger at me, “for your information, you could  _never_ kick my ass, and also I get to be the protective older brother because I  _am_ your older brother! And weren’t you just asking me to stop ignoring you a few hours ago? Not liking me paying attention anymore?” He quipped, seeming to get angrier by the second.

Tears of anger pricked my eyes, “YOU DIDN’T EVEN SAY YOU WOULD STOP IGNORING ME WHEN I ASKED AND  _THEN_ I GOT KIDNAPPED BY LOKI!” I screamed at him, my emotions overwhelming me, but as soon as my outburst had been voiced, all my anger dissipated and I sat down in my chair, or more like slumped, and brought a hand up to my nose, pinching it in mild frustration.

A voice rang out in the silence that was left, “okaaaay,” Natasha began, “so from what I have gathered from that sibling squabble is that Tony was an awful brother for a while and you’re still bitter about it even though he’s trying to change that,” Natasha summarised.

I looked at her, and then looked to Tony, “he never apologised,” I stated simply. And not even a millisecond after I had said that, Tony whispered.

“I’m sorry,” this caused me to look up at him, and then weirdly enough, a smirk came onto my face.

“Hey, maybe you should almost die more often, if you’re going to end up being this nice to me,” I let out a dry chuckle and heard a small chuckle next to me that belonged to Tony. I didn’t see it coming until Tony’s arms wrapped around me.

“I really am sorry,” he began, holding me so tightly I thought he might never let go, “when I was flying that missile up, all I could think about was that I hadn’t told you I loved you, and I hadn’t made things right,” he sobbed into my shoulder, the tears I had been so dutifully holding back spilt over and I sobbed into his shoulder too. “I wish I could go back in time and stop me from ignoring you, stop me from abandoning you when you probably needed me most, but I can’t so instead I’m going to be there.” I gave out a laugh and squeezed Tony tightly before letting him go and stepping back, my head turning to the rest of the group.

“Okay, you can stop staring, gross emotional moment over, let’s finish eating the shawarma.” Everybody was still for a moment, so I rolled my eyes, plonked myself back in my chair and began to eat what was left of my shawarma. I saw a shrug from Natasha as she also carried on eating.

We all ate in silence for a bit before Tony spoke up, “oh, by the way, Cahya, I moved all your stuff into Stark Tower, you’ll be living with me from now on.” I rolled my eyes, rolling-eyes queen right here.

“I don’t want to get into another argument after we  _just_ made up but I can’t live with you,” I said, getting to the point as quickly as possible.

“Why not?” Tony asked, cocking his head to the side, asking me to elaborate.

“Well, Tony, I ummm, I don’t know how to tell you this…. Well, I’m not a little girl anymore, and I… Well, I can’t live in the same place as my brother… Because, well you know, right?” Tony just looked at me with that ‘go on’ expression, wanting me to elaborate, I looked around the table for help and everyone,  _including Steve,_ avoided my gaze. “Tony, I can’t bring guys round to my brother’s apartment! I just can’t, it’s too cringy to think about you being there while I… Well, while I… You know, while I do-the-do, get down and dirty, woohoo if you’re in the Sims…” I trailed off when I saw Natasha looking at me with a raised eyebrow, my face flushed at the thought - I’m not a prude but explaining that you don’t want to live with your brother because then you can’t bring guys around for sex was just difficult.

Tony stared at me and then shrugged, “I fail to see the problem with that,” he said it so flippantly, knowing what he was doing, so my eyes locked onto him and queue intense glare.

“ _Tony,_ ” I gritted through my teeth, “I am  _not_ living with you, I will find my own apartment in… in Washington DC.”

“Why Washington DC?” Tony queries, and I just can’t look him in the eye. I strain myself not to look at Cap but my eyes flit over to him and he’s looking at me. Tony follows my gaze and then raises an eyebrow at me. “Capsicle? You’re moving there because of  _Capsicle_?” His voice is accusatory, “is this what you meant by bringing  _guys_ round?” He looks at me, questioning me but my eyes widen and if I was drinking something I would probably splutter.

“No, God Tony! No, of course not!” I say, Steve protesting this at the same time, I look Tony in the eyes, making sure he is focused on me, “he is  _just_ a friend,” I say, laying down my meaning. “Actually, we are moving there because SHIELD has recruited Steve and their headquarters are in DC,” I explained further, I looked Tony in the eyes, driving my point home. He squinted at me, trying to ascertain whether I was lying. Satisfied that I was telling the truth, he shrugged and ate his shawarma.

Tony dialled someone on his phone and before I could even ask who it was, a gruff voice on speaker phone came on, “what do you want?” Nick Fury’s voice rang out, and suddenly a pit fell in my stomach,  _he wouldn’t dare._

“Hey Nick, you know how I just saved the entire earth from being taken over? Do you think you could do me a favour and fire Cahya?” I looked at him, mouth open in shock,  _he dared._ I snatched the phone from him and turned the speaker off.

“You’re not actually going to fire me, are you?” Nick only replied with a chuckle, “really? Fine then, I can not believe you are taking Tony’s side on this! Well, screw you too,” I ended the call, anger in my eyes and chucked the phone at Tony’s head, which he sadly caught before it hit him. I pointed an accusatory finger at him, “don’t think that means I’ll work for you!” My anger seeping out of every orifice of my body.

Tony chuckled, “you won’t be working for me,” I tilted my head, anger seeping away and being replaced with confusion, “you’re technically one of the owners of Stark Industries anyway if you want it, I mean you would have been when you turned 18 but by that point you were in university and I didn’t want to annoy you so…”

I stared at him, open mouth again, “you mean to tell me that I would own half of Stark Industries, as in you couldn’t make any decisions without me?”

Tony rolled his eyes, “technically, yes, but it wouldn’t be me who you had to share responsibility with, Pepper is the current CEO, so really you should take it up with her.” I nodded, taking in the information.

“I should probably remove all of those cameras I put up around Stark Industries then…” I whispered the words to myself but not quite enough, as Tony seemed to hear.

“You put CAMERAS in MY COMPANY?!” Tony looked a mixture of anger and shock, I sheepishly nodded and replied.

“Technically, it was half of  _my_ company as well… Ooh, that reminds me,” the words left my mouth as I whipped out my phone to see if I could find the footage I wanted. I rumbled through the last few hours of footage until I came across the thing I wanted. “Aha! I think you’ll forgive me once you see this,” I say, turning my phone around to face the rest of the Avengers and pressing play.

I watched as they watched the video I caught of Loki being smashed around by the Hulk. I saw Nat give Bruce a clap on the shoulder as if to say ‘well done’ while everyone else laughed. “Do you think I should show this to Loki? Let him relive the event?”

Thor then spoke up, “I suppose my brother would benefit from being brought down a peg or two.” He seemed to approve so I stood up, swivelling around and making my way back over to Loki.

“Here, look at one of your best moments.” I shoved the phone in his view and left it there, watching him watch it in horror, flinching when he saw himself get hurt. I quickly retracted the phone once I heard ‘puny god’ and put it to sleep. “I think I’m going to keep that forever,” I smirked at him then returned to the Avengers.

“You  _must_ send that to me,” Nat said, smiling widely, I nodded.

“Sure thing… In fact, I’ll send it to  _all_ of you, just for funsy. Except for Thor, do you even have an email address?”

Thor looked baffled and the rest of the group chuckled and ate shawarma together as if we had not just had a rollercoaster of a day. I sat back and watched them with happiness, feeling a sense of home for the first time in a long time.

We were all eating comfortably when a voice rang out, and of course, it was none other than my annoying brother, “can someone please cover her up? She looks like a Fourth of July hooker!” He gestured to me and my signature move of rolling my eyes was accompanied by a sigh but then a smirk went onto a face.

“Well maybe it was especially for Cap on his birthday, that’s the Fourth of July right?” I turned to Steve, a mischievous smirk gracing my beautiful face, raising my eyebrow for him to answer the question I knew the answer to.

He nodded but didn’t say a word, a large blush covered his face, “I think Tony is right, you should be covered up, although I don’t agree with his second point,” he gave a dirty look to Tony and I smiled, boys being boys.

I gave a sigh and sat back in my chair, “Scarecrow, I’m fine, a girl can be dressed like this and not be a hooker,” I was going to go on but Thor just put his large cloak on me, and suddenly feeling the warmth I snuggled further into it, using it as more of a blanket, “mmmm, this is warm,” I closed my eyes. It was  _extremely_ warm and snuggly. I heard a few chuckles and just ignored them.

“Did you just call Cap ‘Scarecrow’?” The voice was from someone I had not met yet in person, I turned to the culprit and found Hawkeye, or Clint as I knew he was.

“Yep, Clint, can I call you Clint?” A small nod came from him, a bit dumbfounded that I knew his name, “oh don’t be worried, I know a lot of things I’m not supposed to, like how to beat Black Widow in a fight,” I smirked as a shriek of ‘Cahya!’ came from the Black Widow herself.

I smiled an innocent smile, “what’s wrong, Nat? I  _did_ beat you,” I said with a way too innocent look. She just scowled.

“Well, we all know you can’t  _actually_ fight, although you have yet to tell me how you did beat me.” I smiled innocently and then sat back in my new blanket and sighed.

I looked at her with a new smile, a sheepish one, “yeah, you’re right, I just can analyse how people fight and  _learn_ how to beat them… But the skills don’t work on other people so unless I have footage or records of you fighting, I stand no chance at beating you,” I looked at Nat with a small smile. “But I can still kick  _your_ butt any day!” My confidence came back and Nat smirked as well.

“Oh, is that a challenge?”

“Definitely.”

“Well, I accept,”

“Let’s go, right here, right now.”

“Cahya!” A new voice interrupted our little sparring of the tongues, I looked over to Tony, of course, it was him.

“ _Tooooonyyyyy,_ why do you always have to ruin my fun?” I said, a pout gracing my lips, looking at him with annoyance.

He just smiled back at me, one of those too innocent smiles that you know is fake, “because I’m your big brother, that’s what we do.”

I turned to Loki, “I understand your pain,” I could  _feel_ Tony roll his eyes at me but I just turned and smiled brightly at him, “you know I love you really, bro,” he gave me a dismissive wave but I knew he probably liked that I said it.

It was then that the team departed, Thor took Loki by the elbow, leading him quite forcefully out of the Shawarma place, and into the street. We made our way to a less destroyed part of New York so that we could say our goodbyes.

I took off Thor’s cape to give it back to him but he refused, “No, thank you, Lady Stark, we have tailors on Asgard who can easily make me another one, and Tony might just try to attack me again if I let you take that off in what you’re wearing, keep it.” I shrugged the heavy fabric back onto my shoulders, it drowned me and made me look like a toddler playing dress-up but it was warm and snuggly so I didn’t mind.

They were given the Tesseract, and Loki begrudgingly took one end of it, and just before they did a ‘beam me up, Scotty’ with it, I noticed Loki slightly bow to me, I smiled and nodded back to him in recognition. Then they disappeared in a light show that looked like a thousand rainbow fireflies were dancing around them, honestly, it looked beautiful.

Once they were gone, I walked over to Steve, making a rather difficult walk as I tried not to trip over the cloak wrapped around my shoulders, I sadly did not manage to not fall over but thankfully Steve with his super soldier reflexes caught me and stood me up.

“So I guess there’s no moving to Washington with you…” I said, trying to break the awkwardness. He smiled a bright dazzling smile that just could take even the saddest people out of their bad moods.

“Yeah, but I’ll visit you, in Stark Tower,” he said, turning to look at it, still visible among the New York skyline, I chuckled.

“I think you mean Avengers Tower, I’m rebranding it… Tony is a bit full of himself but that A that is left on the tower gave me the idea. It should be a good hub for you all to meet and do Avenger-y things.” I light chuckle left his lips and made the sky just seem a bit bluer. I was captured by his laugh until he began to speak.

“Avenger-y? And I think you mean somewhere for  _us_ to meet up, you are definitely an Avenger too.” He smiled down at me because I was very much shorter than him. I smiled back at him and let out a light laugh.

“No thank you, I like not being an Avenger, so much less pressure. But maybe I could be like the manager for the Avengers? I could work with SHIELD to get you missions and stuff… If Nick will ever forgive me for leaving… He really wanted me to be an agent.” My mind trailed off to an angry Nick who seemed let down by my departure. Even if he sounded lighthearted with his laugh earlier on the phone, he couldn’t be that happy right?

“Alright then, manager sounds good. I guess I’ll see you around. I’ll be in New York another week, and then I’m going back to DC.” He smiled his lighthearted smile and it seemed like the weight of the world was gone from his shoulders.

I reached up to him and hugged him around his shoulders, which was quite difficult given his height, but he returned the hug by slipping his hands around my torso, “I will miss you, Scarecrow, don’t forget me while you’re gone,” I whispered into his ear before letting go. He promptly got on his motorcycle and left.

I turned around and realised that everyone else had a ride but me. I rolled my eyes and trudged back towards Avengers Tower. It had been a long day.


	6. Visiting the Captain

**Visiting the Captain**

It felt lonely in the tower, Tony went back to his home in Malibu to stop Pepper from worrying, a woman who I had yet to meet even though she was a big part of Tony’s life, and now I was standing in the middle of my apartment in Avengers Tower. I sipped my morning coffee, not really paying attention when JARVIS piped up.

“Miss Stark, someone wishes to see you, should I allow them access to this floor?” I sighed, I couldn’t get a minute of peace. Honestly, corporate life was definitely not my thing. I’m glad Tony kept this from me when I was at college, I hate it.

“Who is it, JARVIS? And I told you to call me Cahya like you always have done, my position as owner and CEO doesn’t change anything.” I take another sip of my coffee, not yet really awake yet.

“Mr Stark specifically told me to call you Miss Stark and also it is Mr Hogan who wishes to see you,” I nod, taking in the information.

“Okay, let him up, but you should call me Cahya. Am I not the ultimate authority on your program?” I queried. I didn’t hear anything from JARVIS and knew that Tony was behind it. He probably reconfigured JARVIS’s programme so he was the ultimate authority and then forbade JARVIS from telling me. Well, I can fix that.

The door to the elevator opened and in walked Happy. “Hey Happy, how’s my brother?” I looked at him with a raised eyebrow, not getting up from my chair where I was enjoying my morning coffee.

“Oh, Miss Stark, I didn’t realise I was disturbing you,” Happy says, flustered when he noticed was in my pyjamas, “should I go?”

I rolled my eyes and stood up, walking towards the table, “of course not! You have plans in your arms that I obviously need to approve, who cares if I’m in my pyjamas?”

I saw him hesitate but I gave him a ‘do what I say’ glare and he scuttled over to me with a blush on his face, obviously not usually around girls in their pyjamas. He had probably seen Tony in a lot less a lot more but I suppose to him that was the usual.

“Us Starks are a lot alike, so if you can get used to my brother in a lot less than I am in now, you can get used to me in Game of Thrones pyjamas.” I looked at him and he gave me a nod, accepting my orders, “so where are these plans?”

He laid the plans for the tower down, I looked over them. “The outside seems fine, although I think Tony wants a hatch in the hole of the A that is big enough to fit his suits. He wants to make some suits that fly themselves, like back up… And there needs to be an airstrip to land a jet. This is okay in the meantime but they need to plan to expand into my requests into the near future.

“Also, the top of the tower should be a kind of reception room, somewhere for parties and cocktails, the private lab should just be upstairs. Now, I want a computer lab the floor below that, a private one obviously, and also, on that floor, there should be some serious ventilation, computers tend to get hot. And then the next couple of floors should have guest rooms for the Avengers, as it is Avengers Tower after all… And then finally, below that, Tony’s floor and then my floor. Below that can just be the company as it is today, although inquire into some new lab equipment in R&D, they have been complaining about it for aeons, and even if Tony doesn’t check his emails, I check his emails so get that done.”

Happy scribbled down notes as fast as he could and I looked over with sympathy, “sorry, should I repeat anything you might have missed? Sometimes I just talk too quickly.” Happy looked up at me in surprise.

“No, Ma’am, I got it all,” I nodded and looked back down at the plans.

“Happy, you don’t have to call me Ma’am, I would much rather not feel like a middle-aged married woman and be called by my name. Cahya, go on, say it, Cahya, I know you can,” I tried to coax him into saying Cahya.

“That would be quite unprofessional, Ma’am.” I rolled my eyes.

"Well, I won’t fire you for it… Actually, spread it through the tower that I am to be addressed as Cahya. Only Tony and the Avengers…. And you Happy obviously, know that I am a Stark and Tony would like to keep it that way. So on paper, I will be Cahya Smith, and no one is to even suspect I am Tony’s sister.” I saw Happy nod but remain silent. “Happy…”

“Yes, Cahya,” I smiled widely and patted him on the back in a gesture that conveyed my happiness with him calling me ‘Cahya’.

Happy promptly left me alone, and I felt lonely once more. It had only been two weeks, so Steve had left for DC and I was left all alone to look after Avengers Tower. I felt extremely stressed and overworked. The world had been saved but some of the world didn’t seem grateful, in fact, some of the world seemed annoyed at the Avengers - which just seemed absurd.

I sighed and went downstairs to do something I loved to do, tinker. Now, I’m no Tony Stark, but I could tinker with the best of them. I was working on this plan to create small flying cameras, to follow the Avengers around when they were on missions and then uploading the footage (while deleting the sensitive or secret information) to show the world that they were doing everything in their power to have the smallest amount of casualties and the best effectiveness. They needed some good PR honestly.

I tinkered a bit more with a few simulations of my calculations and began to come up with a few errors. I huffed and sent my plans to my brother to look at with an attached message.

‘Hey Tony,

Take a look at this for me, would you? I need them to be small and fast but sturdy and steady when filming. I also need them to automatically send the footage to my computer lab for storage rather than on the camera itself… Think you can do that? 

Thanks, from your fave person ever,

Cahya’

I huffed once more and slumped in my seat. I had nothing to do and no one to talk to. I grabbed my jacket and began to head out. “JARVIS, I’m leaving for a bit, don’t worry.” I hopped into the elevator and made my way to the ground floor, out the front doors and walked out into the sun.

I felt it on my face and the breeze of the wind and it felt like I was free but I knew I wasn’t, I took a walk to nowhere, meandering wherever suited me at the time. I found myself walking towards Brooklyn Bridge and I knew what I wanted to do.

I called Steve, hoping he was up.

“Oh hey, Dorothy,” came the reply once he had picked up.

“Hey Scarecrow, I was just thinking about you, what you up to?”

“Oh nothing really, just finished unpacking boxes, not that there was much. I have been putting it off for a week so I decided to finally do it so I could go running.”

I nodded but realised he wouldn’t be able to see me, I heard a chuckle on the other end, “what was that for?” I asked, curious about what had caused the chuckle.

“Oh, I just knew you were nodding instead of actually replying, you know you do that a lot right?”

I laughed at this, of course, I did this a lot, “I was just meant for a time when you have holographic video calls, obviously, but running? Maybe I should try running. I’m finding New York hard to get used to, business is too haaard,” I whined into the phone, coaxing another laugh out of Steve’s mouth, his laugh sounded so good, could bring a smile on anyone’s face.

“Well, if you’re bored maybe you could come and visit me. I mean I’m not the most interesting person but I’m sure SHIELD would let you do some temporary work if you wanted, some actual fun stuff like you could help me on some missions, I need a girl in a chair, the guy I have right now is completely tactless and lazy.” I smiled at the idea, seeing Steve or business? I think the answer was already there.

I took my phone from my ear and booked tickets on the soonest flight out of New York, when I then realised that Tony had a jet he was probably not using, I smirked to myself then brought the phone back to my ear, “alright, I’ll come to Washington, how does tonight sound? Let’s have all the takeouts and test which is the best Gilmore Girl style.”

“Tonight? You must really hate being in Avengers Tower.” I laughed at that, “alright, I’ll see you tonight, I’ll text you the address.”

I smirked once more, “no need, I know where you live. I’m creepy like that. See you tonight, Scarecrow!” I hung up on him and dialled the jet guy’s number. I mean I could pilot if I wanted but I was in the mood for something fun like blogging.

I was out of New York in the next half an hour, because apparently money can get you a lot in the world, including quick private jet flights. I was settled in the jet, writing on my blog, which had become a lot more popular since the attack on New York. Apparently, a lot of people wanted to know what had happened and my blog offered a first-hand account of it, minus the details that were classified.

I liked writing my blog, I wasn’t any great writer but it helped get my feelings out and also helped me fantasise about all the different pairings I could make. Like Clintasha, or Stony, or Brony - which needed a revise on the name as it sounded too much like the term Bronies - and many other pairings I talked about in my blog.

No one who read my blog knew who I was but I suppose there weren’t many, until the Battle of New York happened, my readership rose from about 1,000 to around 30,000 and was still growing. A lot of people wondered if my account was accurate or if I was just fabricating the details, but I didn’t worry about that because I just posted some of the footage I had from Stark Tower onto my blog and that calmed the rumours. Even a small online news site published an article including some quotes from my blog - that had people reading my blog.

I made it to DC by 2pm and got a cab from the airstrip to where Steve lived. I stepped out of the cab, paid and tipped him and then stood outside of Steve’s apartment building, looking up at it with no idea what to do. I just stared up at it, too scared to go in but I didn’t want to go home, home was boring. It wasn’t until someone asked if I was alright that I came out of my spell.

A blonde woman in a nurse uniform was waving a hand in my face, “hey, you alright?” I was brought out of my trance and looked at her in the face, smiling a half smile.

“Yeah, I’m just nervous to see my friend.” I tried not to let on that my friend was Captain America, although I imagine his neighbours probably recognised him, right? I looked at the woman again and something about her seemed familiar. “Do I know you?” I looked at her with a scrutinising gaze, she looked so familiar, like I had seen her somewhere before. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, why was she nervous?

“I don’t think so, I mean I… I worked in New York for a bit… At the hospital… Well you may have seen me there,” she told me, the pauses were either her being nervous by my gaze or because she had something to hide, but I wasn’t going to find that out while looking at her with suspicion.

“Must be that, well, nice to see you again? I guess? I think I’ll go in now before my friend gets home. I have a key to his apartment…” I nodded to her and ran up the stairs to the building and inside. I went up to his apartment and put in my key, I wasn’t lying when I said I had a key. I walked into the apartment and shut the door behind me.

Turning around I saw a barren apartment, not many personal effects, it was like a showroom apartment - the kind they took people round to show them what an apartment might look like. I walked tentatively inside when the door opened again, causing me to jump around to face the intruder who happened to be the renter of said establishment.

When Steve saw me in his apartment, he paused, staring at me. “Ummm, how did you get in here?”

I smiled nervously, rubbing the back of my neck, “I kind of have a key, not as creepy as it sounds.” I put my hands up in defence, but he looked at me sceptically. “Okay, fine, I had a key made when I found out you had moved here, which sounds creepy but you are my friend and you never offered me a key! What if I was in danger and needed to use this place as a safe house?” I tried to defend my actions but Steve’s judging glare didn’t leave me.

“You know, I should be surprised but I am honestly not. At least you have a key now, but for this, you are definitely paying for takeout.” He pointed a finger at me with his last point and I nodded with a happy smile, at least he had forgiven me.

I reached into the small bag I had brought along with me, I hadn’t brought clothes but I had brought some really small undetectable mini cameras. I looked around to Steve to see if he was looking at me, but he was in his kitchen so I turned back around and hid a couple of cameras around the place. Now, this wasn’t for any creepy stalker reasons, I just needed to make sure he was safe. Once I had the cameras in place, Steve walked back into the tiny living room that he had.

“Coffee?” He held up a mug to me which I graciously accepted. He looked at me with a smile and then noticed my small bag. “Did you bring any clothes with you?” He seemed concerned and I just laughed.

“I’m going to go out and buy some, I brought a change of underwear in case I don’t get to the shops today though… Maybe I should take you shopping and change this whole grandpa style you’ve been rocking.” I gestured to his current attire. “No offence meant or anything.” I said quickly with a smile, “but actually, on second thought, definitely offence meant, you need to get a new wardrobe.”

This just earned a chuckle from his mouth that sounded just heavenly, “well, I don’t have much money for clothes.” He looked at me before turning and rifling through a drawer. “You know, back in the 40s we didn’t really have takeout, and now I have a million menus posted into my post box a day.” He grabbed what I assumed were some of the takeout menus and thrust them in my direction. “I suppose I should be glad I have a super metabolism or a junk food night with you would seriously ruin my figure,” I looked at him and then rolled my eyes.

“Hey! I don’t have any super metabolism but I can still have a junk food night once in a while. So first things first, pizza or Chinese?” I held up two menus, one with pizza and another with Chinese and looked at Steve with an inquisitorial gaze, it probably looked like if I was trying to do a satirical take on Sherlock Holmes.

“We always have to start with pizza,” Steve said resolutely, grabbing the menu from me.

The night carried on with us ordering copious amounts of takeout and judging each one from best to worst, the few takeouts that had delivery girls all flirted with Steve, which made him blush and caused me to start laughing my ass off at how awkward he was.

The night was drawing to a close, Steve and I sat on his sofa, just sitting and trying to not move too much as we were both enormously full. I looked sideways to Steve, “so, have you like… not kissed a girl since 1943 or something?” I looked at him with my head cocked to the side. He blushed and shrugged.

“To me, it was only about a year ago that I landed in the ice, and that I lost someone I cared for deeply. I mean, Peggy is still alive and she lived a good life which is all I could have asked for, but it’s taken me a while to move on, and now I don’t know what to do, how do twenty-first-century guys flirt with girls?” He looked at me, and I smiled a sincere smile.

“Okay, practice on me,” I said, sitting up crossed legged on the sofa, facing him. He took a few seconds to gather whether I was serious or not, then shrugged and mirrored me on the sofa. “So, I’m sat at a bar, alone, and you walk up to me and say…” I coaxed him with my hand to answer.

“Ummm, hey?” He says, unsure of what to do. “Are you alone?” I facepalmed.

“No! You don’t ask a woman if she’s alone, she’ll think you’re a serial killer looking for your next victim, just try being yourself - you know? Chivalrous and kind and sweet, chicks dig that.” I waved my hands at him to tell him to keep going.

“Okay, umm, how about… You look beautiful tonight.” He looked right into my eyes when he was saying it and my heart gave a large thud.

I blushed and tucked some hair behind my ear, “thanks, you don’t look too bad yourself.” I looked at him, waiting for him to continue with this little drama exercise we were acting out.

“Would you like me to buy you a drink?” He seemed a bit more relaxed, but I was on edge, why couldn’t he actually like me and flirt with me like this? I sighed internally.

“That sounds good… So, you’re Captain America, right? What’s that like?” I asked him as if I was an actual civilian.

“Do you think they’ll actually ask me that? I mean, who knows that I am Captain America?” He seemed a little nervous at the idea so I just laughed.

“Come on, Scarecrow, everyone knows that you’re Captain America - especially after New York. I even heard that there’s an exhibit in the Smithsonian about you.”

“What? An exhibit? But… why?” He seemed shocked at the news of his exhibit, I just looked at him.

“I don’t know, maybe because you were the symbol of hope during World War Two and you were a cool super soldier with a great rags to riches kind of story that everyone loves?” I sarcastically said to him, looking him in the eyes with that ‘how could you not know this’ look.

He seemed a bit taken aback by the new information. “Well, maybe I should check this exhibit out.” He looked like he was pondering the idea when I decided to say something that I knew would make him go.

“It has a little section on your friend Bucky, and even some footage of you two I think… And it has replicas of all the Howling Commandos uniforms, including yours!” I exclaimed dramatically, “honestly, if I were you, I think it might help to go down memory lane, see some of the faces of the people whose lives you changed. And maybe say goodbye to some people you didn’t get to…” I looked at him, trying to tell if I had crossed a line, his face looked thoughtful, and then he got up from the sofa.

“What if I can’t bear to see them?” He looked at me as if I had the answer, I stood up and walked over to him.

“What ifs are a pointless exercise, you may regret it if you never go.” I looked up at him and saw pain behind his eyes, all the people he knew, all the people he fought with were dead. I was suddenly swooped into a hug by his arms.

“Thank you for telling me.”

He let go and my heart was racing, not that he would ever know. I nodded and smiled at him, “well you deserve to know, but maybe don’t go in there without a disguise otherwise you’ll have to take like a million pictures with horny teenagers who are in love with you,” I joked, laughing and smiling up at him. He chuckled as well and it made my heart swell to know I made that beautiful sound escape him. I looked up at him once more, suddenly realising how much he towered over me, “umm, so I should get to sleep, is the sofa okay?”

Steve looked from the sofa to me, “you can’t sleep on the sofa, take my bed, and I’ll sleep on the sofa,” he reasoned, this caused a laugh to come out of me.

“You wouldn’t fit on the sofa, so I insist that you sleep in your bed,” I started to attempt to push him to his room, managing to feel his abs underneath his shirt while I was at it, they felt rock hard and yet he didn’t budge at all. He removed my arms from his stomach.

“Now that wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me to let a girl sleep on the sofa.” He wanted to reason with me but he should have known that I was, still am, a very unreasonable and stubborn person. I smirked at him before I turned and planted myself on the sofa, staring at him defiantly, crossing my arms over my chest for dramatic effect.

He moved without saying a word and picked me up, tossing me over his shoulder, “well this isn’t very gentlemanly either,” I commented while getting a perfect view of his ass, he then plonked me down on his bed and turned to leave. I went to get up when he turned around.

His finger was pointed at me while he gave me a pointed look, “you don’t move,” he then left, closing the door behind him before shouting back at me. “There’s some of my shirts in the drawers if you need a nightshirt or something.” I smiled and made my way over to his dresser, opening a few drawers to try and find his shirts. I stripped off my clothes bar underwear and threw on his shirt which despite his choice of tight shirts still drowned me.

I climbed into his bed with a huff and then shouted back, “I’m not okay with this!”

“You’re going to have to be,” was the reply I received. With one last huff to signal my disapproval, I snuggled down into the sheets, which smelled like him and drifted off to sleep.

I woke up to a knock on my door or Steve’s door, and I rubbed my eyes tiredly and mumbled something that resembled only slightly the words ‘come in’, but Steve understood as he walked in with a plate, “I don’t have much but I brought you breakfast.” He walked over and gave me the plate, I graciously took it.

“You made me breakfast?” Emotions were threatening to well up inside me and I tried to push them down, he saw me as a little sister - I knew it. But sometimes I just couldn’t help it.

“Well, you are my guest,” he reasoned, I rolled my eyes and bit into the toast he had made.

“Thanks,” I said between bites, I gestured for Steve to sit down on the bed to talk to me, once I had finished my bite of toast I decided to talk, “so we are definitely going to shopping today, right?”

“You can, but I have to go in to SHIELD today, don’t go crazy and do not buy me anything. I have to go now but feel free to do whatever, there isn’t much in the fridge but there’s some orange juice… Okay, well I’m off.” He stood up, grabbing his jacket on the back of his door and left his room, and a couple of seconds later I heard his front door open and shut. I sighed, alone again.

I definitely wasn’t going to take his advice, no, I was going to buy him a whole new wardrobe. I got up and dressed in my other pair of underwear and the clothes I wore yesterday. I locked the apartment with the key I had and made my way to Georgetown, did some shopping there, and as I took a break in the Waterfront Park, I saw the Triskelion across the water.

Would it hurt to go see Steve at work? And pay a visit to my old friend Nick?

Deciding that I was going to Triskelion, I made my way over the nearest bridge, temporarily crossing over to Virginia, and back onto Theodore Roosevelt Island towards Triskelion. I was walking up to a checkpoint when a security man stopped me.

“I’m going to have to see some sort of company ID ma’am, or your name if you’re on our visitor's list.” I looked at him, he must not know that I know people, I rolled my eyes then whipped out my phone quickly and dialled Nick Fury, putting my finger up to the security guard to tell him not to say anything.

When Nick picked up, I answered loudly, “Nick! My best buddy, I’m outside Trisky and I need you to tell the security people to let me in.”

“Honestly, Miss Stark, you are a handful, I’ll get someone to tell them to let you in. Can’t wait to see you.” He said the last bit sarcastically which made me smile before he hung up on me, not one for long conversations, is he?

Suddenly the security guards walkie-talkie went off and he responded, looking at me a bit astonished. “I’m sorry, Miss Smith, I didn’t realise that you were… Well, umm, you can go through now, have a nice day.” He seemed to be nervously ushering me through and I made my way into Triskelion without any further problems, apart from juggling all of the bags of clothes.

As I walked in, I realised that the man had called me ‘Miss Smith’, I knew that Tony didn’t want me to be his sister but that caught me off guard…. It caught me off security guard, ha! I shrugged it off when a voice rang aloud.

“Cahya? Fury said you’d be here…” He walked up to me and then saw my bags, “that’s a lot of bags, sure you got enough clothes?” He smiled at me with that sarcastic ‘really’ look and I just smiled back.

“Oh, only two of these bags are mine, the rest are for you! I even picked up some bits and bobs to liven up your living situation which is just terrible.” He looked a little less happy and a lot more stern when I said that.

“Cahya, I told you not to buy me anything,” he seemed upset but I just smiled and shoved a couple of bags towards him.

“Now what kind of friend would I be if I listened to you every time you spoke?” I looked at him innocently.

“Probably a very good one, I imagine Dorothy.” I feigned anger. 

“But I’m the bestest friend you could ever have, Scarecrow!” I smiled at him and grabbed him by the elbow, “so which way is it to my ol’ friend Nicky’s office?” He chuckled and took his elbow from my hand and grabbed the rest of my bags much to my arguments. “Wait, isn’t there anywhere we could store these?”

I walked determinedly to the reception, giving them my most dazzling smile. “Hi, Captain America over there has a lot of bags and I was wondering if you could keep them safe back there while he does important hero stuff?” I smiled sweetly once more and batted my eyelashes, the woman at reception looked behind me to see it actually was Captain America and blushed before nodding. I smiled once more at her and walked over to Steve, “you can leave them with her.” I jabbed my thumb back to the lady at reception and waited for him to leave them at reception, she seemed all flustered as he helped her take the bags.

I rolled my eyes, women, they didn’t know just to treat him like a normal human did they? As he walked back to me I raised my eyebrow, “what? She ask for your number? You poor baby!” I rolled my eyes.

He ignored my questions and just said, “to Fury’s office?”

“To Fury’s office.”


	7. Steve and the Neverending Embarrassment

As we entered Fury’s office, I let my arms go out wide, “Nicholas Joseph Fury! How nice to see you again?”

“Excuse me, Cahya, but how in the hell did you get Level 10 information like my full name?!” He was stood up, arms resting on his desk as he leaned forward to look at me, I sheepishly smiled.

“Definitely not because I was bored and hacked into SHIELD for funsies, definitely didn’t do it that way,” I sent a smirk his way and he just brushed it off.

He sat back down and gestured me to sit down, then he looked to Steve, “you are not to repeat this to anyone, now I need you to leave while I discuss how far Cahya’s  _ knowledge  _ of top secret information goes.” Steve stood still for a minute before I shooed him away with my hands, he reluctantly left Fury’s office, probably sulking like a little kid who didn't get to sit with the grown up. I turned back to Fury, he looked back at me sternly. “So, Cahya, what other secrets do you know?”

I raised an eyebrow at him, questioning the tone he was using. No one talks to Cahya Stark that way! So I started with the most important information I had,  “I know how you lost your eye, you tried to hide the file deep in some very boring and high clearance level data but I followed the trail you probably didn’t realise you left, so now I know. I also know about the three new and improved Helicarriers you have and how you haven’t given the rooms an upgrade, if I ever join SHIELD again I want there to be better mattresses and more space in the bedrooms, is that too much to ask?”

Nick looked slightly amused, an evil glint in his eye, he leaned his elbows on the desk and rested his chin upon his hands. “You ever divulge that information to anyone and I will personally hunt you down and do the same thing to you,” he looked at me with meaning and I knew he wasn’t kidding - not that I was going to tell anyone anyway.

“Whatever Nick,” I rolled my eyes at him, “I won’t tell anyone, I’ll keep the amusing little secret to myself and not ruin it for Coulson. Oh yeah, I know he’s alive too… But I suppose that’s another secret I’ll have to keep…” I seemed to ramble on before I was cut off by Fury coughing.

“I suppose if you already know all this it wouldn’t hurt to have you look at the Helicarriers, we need to make sure all the tech has working programmes before we fit them to the Helicarriers. You think you’re up to the job?”

I smiled widely, little did he know how much of a joy it was to finally be back working on something fun and not boring like redesigning Avengers Tower which  _ did  _ have bigger room and comfier mattresses and nice open windows that immediately lead to a drop that goes very far down to most probable death, and all those fun things. “Of course, I don’t know anyone that you’ve hired who would be better, and considering you used my recruitment software, I know everyone - or at least how talented they are, and I’m more talented.”

He smiled at my reply, “well then let me show you the project, in person.” He stood up from his desk and walked out the door, expecting me to follow him. For a second I stared at the door and then my senses returned and I quickly jogged to catch up with him as he walked at a brisk pace. “Don’t get left behind,” he said loudly back to me, I grumbled under my breath and ran to make the distance between us non-existent and kept at his pace. I could tell it was fun for him to see me run to keep up with him and I scowled, stupid man, stupid pirate, stupid highly influential and important man, ugh! I rolled my eyes at myself and my inner thoughts. When we made it to an elevator, he got in and I got in after him. The identification scanner recognised him as a level 10 and he pressed the button to a floor that looked like a sub-basement level. I looked over at him without turning my head, the Helicarriers were below the building? How exactly were they going to fly them?

He smirked when he saw my confusion, probably happy he knew something I didn’t. I started chanting my ‘stupid man’ chant in my head when the elevator stopped and we walked out into what looked like a giant warehouse. My eyes popped out of my head, of course, I had seen the plans for the Helicarriers but they looked much bigger in person. Especially three of them next to each other and they weren’t even finished, they were still being built by a very large crew of workmen.

“This is Project Insight.” He gestured to the Helicarriers and I took a few steps forward, marvelling at the giant aircrafts that were being built in front of my eyes.

I looked back at Nick, “where’s the console? It would be best if I did my work on the Helicarriers, I can see exactly what the problem is at its source then.” He gestured me forward to some stairs as we made our way down to the warehouse floor, or basement floor, or factory floor... I couldn’t really believe this was all under ol’ Trisky.

A few of the workmen eyed Nick and upon realising it was Director Fury they would let out a curt ‘Director Fury’ before carrying on with their jobs. We made our way to the first Helicarrier, Nick went over to a poor guy who was very nervous, letting us onto the Helicarrier. I nodded and gave him a reassuring smile, I guess the big Boss doesn’t normally come down to the factory floor.

We made our way onto the giant aircraft and Nick Fury led me past lots of scaffolding and have laid pipes towards the console whose room looked like it was going to be one of the last to finish. There were large sheets of white covering opening where windows were supposed to be, I went over to the console and turned it on. “I’ll be fine from here, Nicky, she’ll tell me what’s wrong with her.” I stroked the machine, probably making Nick uncomfortable but the nickname I gave him probably made him more uncomfortable.

“I’ll need a report on my desk just before you leave back to New York.” He promptly left and I was finally alone to get to the root of this beauty.

First I checked the things I could in this state of construction, like if the lights were working and if the sensors were also working. The few fixtures they had I was programming, as the idiot who had done it before was an idiot who had just copy-and-pasted their whole program for each fixture with minor tweaks. By the time I had finished all of that it was getting late so I texted Steve to meet me at the doors of Triskelion. I made my way up towards the elevator when I saw someone I hadn’t met before, with Nicky Fury. I slowed my walk in front of them.

“Hey Nick, who’s your friend?”

“Cahya, this is my friend and colleague, Secretary Alexander Pierce.” I stiffened,  _ how did I not know about Secretary Pierce?  _ I smiled at him, “and he’s just here because I have to go away for some diplomacy things and I need my best man here to run things.” Alexander Pierce smiled at me and shook my hand.

I decided to trust him, there weren’t many people that could call themselves friends with Nick, and I trusted Nick’s judgement. “It’s very nice to meet you,” I nodded at him and continues, “I’m terribly sorry but I have a friend waiting for me so I should be going.” I smiled once more and moved past them to the elevator.

Once I was out of the elevator back on the ground floor, I saw Steve smiling at me and walking up to me. I smiled back, “hey!” I hugged him once he had reached me and he hugged me back, one of the best things about having guy friends was they usually gave really nice hugs. “How was  _ your  _ day then?”

“Nothing much happened, recon and planning for missions but nothing exciting.” I nodded and smiled, interlocking our arms as we walked towards the exit.

“Ah same, just some boring tech stuff that I had to do because the other tech guys are lazy and messed it up.” He nodded at me and then stopped, he unlinked our arms and jogged over to the reception, collecting my bags. I smiled and took a couple from him, then instead of walking out of the front doors, he led me to another elevator.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I brought my motorcycle so I thought we should take that back,” I nodded and walked into the elevator, his whisper still tickling my neck, all the hairs on the back of my neck were standing to attention as a shiver ran down my spine, and he didn’t even know that he did this to me.

As we made our way to his bike I was trying to stuff some of my bags into others until I only three bags. He turned to me and handed me a helmet, taking a couple of bags and transferring the contents into a backpack before handing that back to me. I stared at him, “you realise that you have now definitely creased all of the clothes I bought right?”

He chuckled, “Yeah, well, I have an iron so they’ll live.” I grumbled about having to iron clothes that wouldn’t be squished if not for him before shrugging on the backpack and climbing onto the back of the motorcycle.

I looked at his waist, wondering if I should wrap my arms around them, on the one hand, it would be safer if I did that, but what if he felt uncomfortable? I decided to just try and hold the back of the seat, waiting for him to start the bike when he turned to me.

“Are you going to hold on or do you  _ want  _ to fall off Dorothy?” I stared at him for a second and silently put my arms around his waist, holding on rather lightly. I felt him shake his head and then start the motorcycle up.

As it pulled away, I realised I would have to hold on tighter so I did, basically squishing my whole body into his. I closed my eyes the entire time that we were travelling until he finally stopped for good, and I only knew he had stopped for good when he tried to pry my terrified arms from around his body.

As soon as I felt his hands trying to pry away my arms I flew back from the motorcycle, and just as I let go I quickly tripped over my own two feet and landed on my butt.

“Oh my goodness, are you okay?” Steve ran over to me to help me up but I smiled.

“I just fell on my butt, nothing except my pride is hurt.” I dusted myself off and stood back up, not able to look him in the eye. Instead, I opted for the second option of quickly running into his building and up to his apartment.

I heard him jog up the stairs once I had made it to the top, “well that was over-dramatic.” I rolled my eyes,  _I'm a drama queen,_   _deal with it._

“Well I felt embarrassed,” I said honestly, looking him in the eye, “so now that you’re home you  _ have  _ to try on what I bought you!”

He groaned at the idea but I just shoved some clothes towards him, spun him and pushed him towards his bedroom, “I’ll be waiting out here to see how they look! I got your sizes from your existing collection of clothes so don’t even try to get out of it by saying they don’t fit!” I yelled, making sure he could hear me.

There was a pause, an awkward amount of silence, and then his voice rang out, “you went through my clothes?!” The exclamation wasn’t asking for an answer, it was a rhetorical question. It had caused to me laugh out loud, definitely loud enough to be heard through the door.

A few minutes later, begrudgingly, Steve came out of the bedroom in some jeans, a white shirt that didn’t stick to his skin but he had nonetheless tucked in and his leather jacket. “Now that looks much more modern, you can even keep your jacket, it suits the look! But you have to untuck the shirt” He shuffled a bit, pulling at the waist of his pants which was a lot further below what he was used to.

I walked over and forcefully lifted his shirt so that it became untucked and then let it go. “There, much better,” it wasn’t until I realised that I was very close to his chest that my heart started pounding again. I retreated, walking backwards towards my space. “Ummm… So there are a lot more clothes to try on, here,” I chucked him his backpack and the other shopping bag and turned, making my way back to the sofa and bringing a blanket around my knees.

He came out once more in some nice looking normal guy clothes and then as he went into the third time to change, my eyes started to droop and I laid on the sofa, just closing my eyes for a second.

It was when I felt a shake on my shoulder that I woke up again, “Cahya,” his voice was soft and quiet, it sounded so kind, so safe that I smiled. Then I tried to open my eyes much to their disagreement.

“What?” My voice sounded tired, “how long was I asleep?”

He smiled at me, “only a couple of minutes, I was just going to take you to the bedroom but I thought you might want some dinner first. I don’t have much in so I then realised I would have to go to the store and get some food. And  _ then  _ I realised that even after an entire year of knowing you, I don’t know what you like to eat. So I decided to wake you up and ask you.”

I nodded sleepily, “I like most things, just nothing too spicy and nothing with cheddar, most people think it’s weird that I like most cheeses but I don’t like cheddar or red Leicester. I even like blue stinky cheeses, just not basic cheese - it tastes really weird and I don’t like the texture.” I smiled lazily at him. “I don’t know if I can stay awake until you get back but if I fall asleep on this sofa you are not to move me, you deserve a night in your own bed.” I think he nodded but I couldn’t be sure because by the end of my little ramble on cheese I was already falling back asleep.

When I woke up, I was in his room again, I rolled my eyes, huffed and stormed into the living room. “You can’t just put me in your bed, you need to sleep there too!”

All I heard was a chuckle when Steve came round the corner with a plate of food and a piece of toast in his mouth. He handed me the plate and took the piece of toast from his mouth, “I told you, it is not the gentlemanly thing to let you sleep off the sofa.”

I rolled my eyes, which caused a smile to appear on Steve’s face, it was my signature move after all, “well, at least let me pay you some rent.” I said it so resolutely that he couldn’t possibly argue.

However his smile didn’t waver when he replied, “no, never,” he sat down on the sofa and I sat down next to him, eating my bit of toast from the plate he gave me.

Little did he know that later I would find out his bank details and wire him the money, and without my details, he couldn’t pay me back. I whipped out my phone and noted down the idea, knowing I couldn’t do it in front of him right now, as I was writing down my idea his voice rang out. “Why do you have your evil plan smirk on your face?”

I looked at him, surprise replacing my previous look on my face, “I didn’t even realise I was doing that... That was completely involuntary…” I was shocked that I couldn’t keep it together or hide my evil plan making - well, not evil, but mischievous.

He looked at me like he didn’t know if he wanted to, believe me, I smiled sweetly at him and then looked back at my phone. I saw the time and smiled, I had to leave. “I have to go now anyway. Actually, I have to go in like half an hour but I need to start getting ready to look fabulous, so leave the questioning until after work.”

“Where are you going this early in the morning? I know normal people work this early in the morning but you’re definitely more of a late morning or early afternoon starter.” I smirked at him,  _ wouldn’t he like to know _ , he wasn’t going to find out anytime soon. I skipped to his room, closing the door and grabbing some clothes I had bought yesterday for myself and the new underwear I bought as well and left his room to go to the bathroom. On my way to the bathroom, Steve tried to block my path and question me further but I just sidestepped him - an advantage of being small was being quick and able to duck under tall guys arms.

Once I was finished in the shower, I changed and left to knock on the next door over. The girl from outside Steve’s apartment block answered the door, she still looked familiar. I smiled sweetly, “hey, do you have a hairdryer I can borrow? Steve doesn’t have one.”

“Oh… Ummm… Sure.” She retreated into her flat to get the hairdryer and came back quickly with it, but she was holding it and not holding it over, I looked her in the eyes, raising an eyebrow to ask what was wrong. “So are you like… Steve’s girlfriend?”

This caused me to burst out laughing so hard that Steve opened the door to his apartment to look for the commotion, between laughing, I tried to tell him. “She… Thought…. That… I… Was… Your… Girlfriend,” I continued to laugh, one of those deep ones in my gut so much it hurt. When my laughter died down, I wiped the laughter tears from my eyes and smiled at her. “Definitely not,” I smiled once more and she smiled back for once, giving me her hairdryer.

I quickly thanked her, ran back into Steve’s apartment, past him who was still standing in the hallway still, and as quickly as I could I dried my hair; passing the woman her hairdryer on my escape of the apartment block to go on my mission to the Smithsonian.

I started to walk there, knowing it wasn’t opening for another half an hour to give me enough time to get there just for when it opens. As the guard unlocked the door I shot inside, going straight past all the cool airplanes to the Captain America exhibit.

There was no one there yet, the doors had just opened, so I took my time, going through it at my own pace. I took pictures with each interesting bit, like me in the height measuring to see how tall I was compared to tiny Steve - who looks so small and innocent and fragile that I just wanted to protect him. Turns out I was still shorter than Steve when he was small, he was 5 foot 4 inches and I’m 5 foot 3 inches so only an inch smaller but still, it was upsetting.

I took a few pictures that weren’t shameless selfies and were for important information about his life that I didn’t know before. When I finally reached the Howling Commandos part I saw someone I had heard Steve mention only briefly before - Bucky Barnes. I remembered how hurt he sounded when he mentioned him, how sad he seemed, and I studied the picture of Bucky.

He was handsome, Steve had said he was a real charmer and that he had offered Steve a place to stay when his mother died - and both of those times he almost ended up in tears at the memories. I took a picture of the text, and the picture, making sure the images were sharp. When I had gone through the whole exhibit, I made my way to the gift shop, buying all the Captain America things I could - action figures, shirts, jackets, plush toys and fake replica shields. I bought them all, and changed in the toilets into the shirt and jacket, knowing it would embarrass Steve later at SHIELD.

I smiled and left the museum, hailing a taxi and telling him to drive me to the Triskelion.

As I arrived, I noticed people looking at me with a questioning gaze, the few agents who knew me on the carrier had amused smiles, they knew my antics too well to find it odd. I grabbed my phone and called Steve, after two rings he picked up.

“Hey, Cahya.”

“Hey, Steve, where are you? I’m at my good friend Trisky’s and I was wondering if we could have lunch together or something? Meet you in the canteen.” I turned the call off before Steve could protest and made my way to the canteen.

I was the first there, so when Steve walked in, he saw my attire and tried to turn around before I saw him but I saw him. “Steve! Hey!” I shouted loudly, waving my arms largely so he couldn’t ignore me, then for the benefit of my humiliation ritual, I said even louder, “I didn’t have anything to wear so I had to borrow your shirt and jacket, I hope that’s alright!” He looked at me with a glare the could kill, but then grumbled knowing that avoiding me would make it soooo much worse and we ate together.

As we left, I made my way to Project Insight, and as I entered the elevator, I saw Alexander Pierce. “Oh hey, Lexi, is it okay if I call you Lexi? I call Nicky, well, Nicky and I thought that it's only appropriate that I give you a nickname.” He smiled a tight smile, not arguing with me, and then the elevator began to descend.

“So, what exactly are you doing today on Project Insight?”

“Oh nothing important, just some techy stuff - it would bore you to hear me talk about it.” I smiled nicely at him and that’s where the conversation ended. The elevator dinged and we were finally at Project Insight -  _ second day here I come _ .


	8. Work Really Sucks - A Lot

Immediately, I saw Alexander Pierce when I stepped off the elevator. I smiled and nodded at him.

"Hey, Lexi." My smile widened into a smirk at his nickname that I had given him, I liked giving people nicknames, it was fun to see them annoyed at their nicknames - or to see them begrudgingly accept their nickname after I refuse to call them anything else like Nicky.

"Please, call me Alexander at least," he smiled at me, so I decided to keep on calling him that from now on. He would learn to love what I called him eventually, plus Lexi fit him a lot better than Alexander Pierce. His smile never seemed to reach his eyes, although that was probably because he was not happy with his nickname in the slightest.

"Oh, don't hate on the name, Lexi." I smiled back at him, he returned the smile more obviously this time, and then I tilted my head to the side, giving him a questioning cock of one eyebrow, "what are you doing here anyway? Not like the high ups to micromanage." He gave me an easy smile, it made his face look a little less stressed like a small weight had been lifted off his heavy load of work or perhaps that something had made his day easier with a joke.

"Well, I wouldn't have to micromanage if I had competent staff - excluding you, of course. Nick gives you one of his highest recommendations." I nodded expectantly like the news didn't surprise me - which it didn't. Nicky loved me, that's why he always begged me to become an agent - because I was just so fantastically amazeballs that he just couldn't live without my superior awesomeness around him all the time.

We stood there for a second while I just nodded and pursed my lips, feeling a bit awkward, I replied, "well… I should be getting to work, so…" I gestured to the stairs and he stepped aside and let me pass to do my work. I gave him a gratuitous smile and left for the carrier's console.

I turned back around once I reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Lexi discussing something with what was probably someone in charge of the factory floor workers, he had a hard hat on so that's what I assumed. I stared a while longer until they began to say their goodbyes, whispering something in each other's ears - maybe they were whispering sweet nothings about their secret love affair they were having. I smiled at the thought and turned, slowly walking towards the first Helicarrier, which was the most developed one of the three.

It was still a long way to walk in my opinion, and as I turned to find Lexi once more, I noticed he had left. I shrugged and carried on my trek to where there were stairs onto the carrier being manned by a guy who now knew who I was and smiled with a courteous nod in my direction as I ascended the stairs.

As I made my way to the console, I noticed that they had loaded the artillery modules (or as I like to call them 'big fucking guns') and decided I should probably start with those. I made my way to the console, and while checking that the programmes for the artillery were working I noticed that the use for the artillery wasn't immediately obvious.

I knew that the last SHIELD Helicarrier had been attacked, I was there so I knew that they needed some sort of defence against egotistical Norse gods and such but apart from that, there seemed to be a few too many for  _just defence_. I started to look into the programming they had been given, what they were going to do automatically and what kind of things they couldn't do on automation.

My anxiety began to grow as I dug down further into it. I kept digging, hidden beneath encryption for Level 10 staff I found nothing that looked suspicious, but it seemed like I had only scratched the surface. My heart pounded, something was seriously wrong with this picture and I didn't know if I even  _wanted_ to delve deeper.

I stood at the console, taking a deep breath. I looked around, knowing I was alone but wanting to check it all the same. I couldn't move for a second,  _what would Steve do?_ I rolled my eyes, of course, I knew what Steve would do, he would delve deeper to find out what was wrong and try and fix it - he was that sorta guy. But did I really want to potentially risk my life and the lives of people I loved to find something I could probably not do anything about?

_But Steve could do something, or Fury, or many other people you trust._ My conscience argued with me, my sense telling me to leave well alone but my duty to my friends and to doing the right thing was pushing through.

I groaned, annoyed that I had finally made a decision, probably a stupid-ass decision but a decision all the same. I stepped towards the console hesitantly, chanting in my head ' _please just be something innocent,'_ but I knew deep down that something that was hidden this well wouldn't be anything good. The Level 10 encryption was not too bad but something that had to be double encrypted was bad news. My fingers shook over the keyboard, so before my resolution wavered, I began to dig just that little bit farther, taking deep breaths to keep myself calm.

When I had finally decrypted the double encrypted file, my breath caught in my throat. It was  _my_ program, but it also wasn't. It looked like my recruitment software, but the parameters weren't searching for potential employees, they were searching for potential threats - threats to  _Hydra._

I began to feel sick as I delved deeper, not knowing what to think. Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD, Hydra was going to kill millions with these Helicarriers, Hydra was going to take over the world from the inside. Hydra, the rogue Nazi division that had created Red Skull and Steve had battled for years had never been destroyed and was right under everyone's noses this whole time.

I stood there, fixed in place as if my feet had been superglued to the floor. Then all of a sudden my feet were carrying me away from the console.  _I have to warn someone._ I ran out of the Helicarrier, down the factory steps, and realising I looked rather distressed, a few of the workmen gave me looks. I smiled uneasily in response and slowed down to a less urgent walk, trying to look like I was just going for a coffee break or something.

I got to the elevator and kept clicking the button, knowing that it didn't make a difference, that the elevator was coming at the same rate despite my constant attack on the elevator button. As it finally arrived after an eternity, I ran in and asked the elevator to take me to the floor of Fury's office.

My brain wasn't working, I had forgotten that Fury was away, that Alexander Pierce was in his place. So when I arrived on the floor, I saw Alexander Pierce ahead of me, talking to someone with a clipboard. My brain caught up with my thoughts and I shouted, "Mr Pierce!"

His head turned to see me as I jogged up to him. He smiled at me and I gave him a nervous smile. "Everything okay, Cahya?"

I nodded in response, a bit out of breath because I was unfit. "Yeah, I was just wondering if we could talk in private? I found something that I need to discuss with someone… Someone high up." I decided to change the words I was going to say, I was going to say 'someone Fury trusts' but thought perhaps that roused too much suspicion in front of this mystery man with a clipboard.

He nodded and waved the clipboard man away and guided me into Nick Fury's office. As he closed the door behind him, he clicked the lock and looked to me, "seems like it is something sensitive, I thought you might not want anyone walking in." I nodded,  _good thinking on his part_ , he led me to the seat in front of Fury's desk and I sat there, him sitting in Fury's seat behind the desk.

He then looked at me seriously, "so what did you find?" His eyes were inquisitive, his lips pressed in a straight line, not looking amused and I was thankful for his serious demeanour, it made it easier knowing that someone else was taking this seriously.

My voice didn't seem to want to talk, my brain not knowing how to break to a guy who had built this institution that it had been infiltrated by Hydra. "I… Umm... Well, you see… I don't know how to put this…"

He looked at me expectantly, knowing that I was trying to get to a point and failing miserably. "How about you start with what you were doing when you found out what you did? Tell it like a story." He prompted me with his hand, waving it in a 'go on' motion, encouraging me to elaborate on the senseless noises I had made so far.

"Okay, so as you know… I was in the console room looking at the software… And well, I was just wondering while I was working… What the new artillery was being used for because, you know, it seems like a  _lot_ of firepower so I looked into it," at this point, Alexander was watching me intensely, all of his attention was focussed on me. He looked concerned and I paused, it seemed like such a big weight that I was getting off my chest, and even though this weight had been on my shoulders meer minutes, it felt like I was being crushed by responsibility and fear.

"It's okay, you can go on," he said reassuringly, I gave him a strained smile and continued.

"So, I kind of… well, I kind of hacked into SHIELDs files, not that I haven't done it before but… Anyway, I found that they were going to get rid of potential threats to SHIELD but something about it didn't seem right, there were some hidden files that were double encrypted. Encrypted once by the Level 10 encryption program and once more by encryption I haven't seen before.

"So I cracked it, whoever did the encryption was pretty smart but this is my thing, you know? So like, I cracked it and I found out that…"

I paused, did I really want to tell him? He was looking at me, asking me with his eyes to continue. I sighed, "I found out that HYDRA has infiltrated SHIELD. They are going to use Project Insight to remove people who might oppose them, which is in the millions!"

There was silence, a concerned and perhaps worried look covered Alexander Pierce's face. Then he broke the silence, "well this isn't good."

"Yeah, I think that's pretty obvious," I sarcastically replied before my brain could catch up with my mouth, I looked at his reaction but he just looked concerned, not angry or insulted.

"I hadn't expected this, but I suppose I'll have to deal with it now." He walked around his desk and I gave a huge sigh of relief.

"Great, I didn't really know what to do… I mean, not great, obviously this is very bad, but thank you!" I felt myself be lifted by the weight that was off my shoulders, the pressure of this discovery making it feel like my spine has been crushed and then I was sharing the pressure with another person, and as they say, a problem shared is a problem halved.

"I didn't expect to have to recruit you at this moment but if you tell anyone else of our infiltration..." he continued and my head whipped around to him, my heart constricting,  _does he mean what I think he means?_ "Well, I'm afraid I can't let you leave."

My heart thuds in my chest, I begin to feel fearful, I don't know what to do but I stand up from the seat and back away from Alexander Pierce.

"That's okay, I won't tell anyone." I put my hands up in surrender, smiling nervously and backing towards the door. A nervous laugh leaves my mouth and as I reach the door, I try to open it, but it's locked and my mind goes back to when I entered the room and Alexander locked it behind me. I smiled at Alexander as he walked towards me, each step making me feel heavier and more helpless. I was frozen and couldn't move.

When he reached me, he took my hand and sat me back down in the seat I was in moments ago. He went around to the desk as I sat still, I should have run, I should have screamed, I should have attacked him or done something but my brain wasn't cooperating with my body. I watching him as he calmly took out his phone and dialled someone.

"Rumlow, hey it's Pierce… Yeah, we have a situation, I need you down here for a Code Idun… Yeah, exactly, she found out. Well, I can't let her leave. Get here now, no more complaining." He hung up the phone and looked at me.

He smiled a smile that once calmed me but instead, it made my stomach drop, "Sorry about him, he's always way too serious, he'll be up to get you in a moment."

I just nodded, and finally, my voice came back to me, "hey, isn't Idun that Norse Goddess who was kidnapped by Loki? How very fitting." I rolled my eyes, of course, that was code for me, they just loved to make fun of me.

"I didn't realise you knew much Norse Mythology."

"Yeah, I got into it when I heard about a Norse God, a.k.a Thor, coming down to Earth. I thought it would be interesting to do some more reading and the tales and legends are what I really enjoy - they are just so ridiculous." I smiled nervously, not really knowing what else to do. "I mean, in the story technically Thjazi kidnapped her but Loki helped and then later Loki kidnapped her back so it's just a weird story…"

A knock rang through the room and both of our heads looked at the door, I peered over at Alexander to figure out what he was thinking. "Who is it?"

"Rumlow," came the reply.

Alexander hurried over and opened the door to see Brock Rumlow at the door, he walked past Alexander and gave me a creepy smile. "So you haven't even tried to run?"

I shrugged, "my self-preservation instincts tell me that running will probably be futile and there's probably no one on this floor close enough to hear me scream so what's the point in fighting when the same outcome is going to happen anyway? Might as well get kidnapped without injury rather than with injury."

He smirked at my commentary, "I can't tell if that's the smartest or stupidest thing you've ever done but it makes my job easier, although I'm still going to have to knock you out." I nodded.

"So how are you doing this? I'd rather you didn't knock me out by hitting me, for one it hurts and secondly it is unpredictable how long I'll be out. Do you have some sort of knock out drug to inject into me?" I sat back in the chair, accepting my fate for what it was.

Rumlow opened up his satchel and extracted a needle and a bottle of what I assumed to be the drug he was planning on injecting me with. "Have you ever done this before? Because it would be great if you didn't just randomly stab me somewhere with a needle."

He grumbled under his breath then replied to me, "how are you so calm about this? Most people are not so calm."

I shrugged once more as he bent down in front of me and injected me with the drug. As I faded from consciousness, I could no longer make out or understand what they were saying, it took only a few seconds and suddenly I was plunged into darkness only to wake up a few moments later - well a few moments later from my point of view. It had probably been a couple of hours.

When I woke, I was on a bed in a concrete room with very little decorating it, just one chair at the end of the bed. There was a harsh yellow light above me and I noted that there was no window in the room, just the door that also had no window. As I strained to sit up, I made myself look around the room, it could have been worse, I could have been strapped to a chair or I could have been seriously injured.

First I checked my pockets, but of course, they had taken my phone. Then, as my eyes roamed the room I saw a camera in the corner. I sat up straighter and then waved my arms around wildly, "hello?! I'm awake now! If Alexander Fucking Pierce wants to see me, now is the time!" I shouted into the empty room, hoping that either the camera had audio or the walls were thin enough that someone could hear me.

I heard a sliding of something so I whipped my head around to see what looked like a hatch on the door, a face looked in and I looked back at him, smiling sweetly. "Hey, could you go get someone important or high up for me to talk to? Or some food? Actually, I would prefer some food, like pizza. Oooh, pizza sounds good." My mind wandered to pizza and I hadn't realised that the hatch had closed and they were unlocking the door, and I only knew this from the very loud and annoying locks that they obviously put on the door.

The door opened with a lot of resistance, it was obviously a heavy door, which made me roll my eyes - did they really need to put me in a room this secure? How much of a threat was I? In walked Rumlow looking as arrogant and smarmy as ever, I scrunched up my nose in disapproval.

"You're not pizza."

He looked at me and then rolled his eyes,  _rude, that's my move._ "Come on, get up, Pierce wants to see you."

"Where am I?" I asked him this, not because I expected to get an answer but because I thought perhaps I could annoy him with questions, "what's your first name? Why do you work for HYDRA? Are you that insecure in your masculinity that you have to exert your power over defenceless women like me? Why are you not pizza? And if you were pizza, what kind of pizza would you be? I'd be classic Margherita, or Pepperoni, definitely not Hawaiian. You seem like a Hawaiian guy, are you?" At this point in my endless questions, he grabbed me by my arm and lugged me out of my sitting point in bed to standing.

"I will take that as a yes to insecure in your masculinity then," I smirked at him but he just pushed me forwards in front of him.

"Don't make me restrain you."

"Ooooh, kinky," I retorted, I couldn't see his face but from his particularly hard push, I assumed he was perhaps a bit disturbed. I'm sure that he at least know that a smirk was gracing my beautiful face.

As we walked down the most boring halls of all time, I found myself trying to at least memorise where I was going - which was hard considering all the hallways looked exactly the same. We had to walk through a big hall with high ceilings but even that didn't have any windows. I was sure by this point that we were definitely underground somewhere - which meant I wasn't going to get any good clues as to where we were.

I realised I had stopped when another harsh push came from behind me, I grumbled as I stumbled forward -  _stupid Rumlow with his stupid face and stupid smile and stupid personality._ I kept saying this in my head, reminding me once of when I was kidnapped by Loki, and again when I was describing Nicky, now it seemed like those were overdramatic now that I was faced with smarmy evil Brock Rumlow.

"What kind of name is  _Brock_  anyway? Like really? Is it short for Broccoli?" My questions earned me another hard shove as we moved along the corridor, and not long after the very harsh shove a certain stupid man gave me, we were inside a room, specifically a room containing Hydra double agent Alexander Pierce. I smiled sarcastically at him if that is possible.

"Rumlow, I told you to be nice to our guest, how long have you been shoving her down the hallway?" I looked back at Rumlow with a smirk,  _ha, the big boss is angry with you now._

"Oooooh, someone's in  _trouble,_ " I elongated the word trouble in that silly kid way just to annoy him before sticking my tongue out rudely at him. He glared at me but said and did nothing; victorious in my endeavour I turned back to Pierce. "So, keeping me prisoner, what exactly do you need from me? Am I gonna be some Avenger bait or your tech-savvy supermodel type? Because I know which one I would go for," sarcasm was dripping from my entire being as I smiled mock-sweetly at him.

"Well, actually, if you would take a seat," Hydra Asshole Numero Uno, also known as Alexander Pierce, gestures to the seat in front of a table that reminded me of an interrogation table as it had that weird bar on it to cuff perps to. I sat down in the 'perp chair' facing Pierce, he smiled at me and began to talk. "So, your algorithm from your legitimate business from before you were a SHIELD agent that was just a front for your  _other_ work, you remember it?

I gave him a ' _really_ ' face and nodded, he continued, "Well we used it and had it adapted by another, as you would put it, tech-savvy type, well it was more like it was absorbed into our own algorithm to help it where it had been failing - I'm not too sure on the specifics because I am not tech savvy but either way we used your work. Anyway, what I was trying to say was that, when we used our modified version of it, it alerted us to many people that could potentially be or already are Hydra threats."

"And that's me? I'm a Hydra threat?" I asked him, but he just shook his head.

"No, you were identified as someone potentially useful to Hydra. You weren't perceived to be or ever predicted to be an active threat. Instead of, well,  _eliminating_ you as a dormant threat, we wanted to instead offer you a position…"

I raised an eyebrow, was he really trying to recruit me to Hydra after kidnapping me?

"In Hydra," he clarified further.

"Yeah, I got that part," I snapped back, "what do you mean by dormant threat?"

"You see, people are either active threats, potential active threats, or dormant threats. Active threats like Captain America are people who actively try to get rid of Hydra, although currently, he does not know that Hydra still exists, whereas a potential active threat is someone who in their future might become a threat to Hydra. Finally, a dormant threat, like you, would never actively seek us out or try to take us down but may swing to the anti-Hydra side if asked. So let's say your friend, Mr Captain America, asked you to help him take down Hydra - you would probably say 'yes'. And so you are a dormant threat."

I nodded, taking in the information, "so… I am a dormant threat because there is a chance I could not oppose you at all or even go to your side, so you want to use me." I went through it all in my head and it didn't sound crazy - I wasn't exactly fond of Hydra but this was all new to me anyway so it's not like it mattered. I  _would_ help Steve if he asked me to help, but probably not if he didn't.

"Yes, exactly, and we were hoping to recruit you under… Let's say, under different circumstances but when you threatened to leak our secrets, we had to intervene. So sadly, we had to kidnap you. Luckily for us, a few times in your life, you have disappeared so by the time someone realises you're missing, they won't be able to find you."

I nodded, taking all of this in, trying hard not to show the nervous little girl inside me that just wanted to cry and run away. "Why didn't you just kill me?" He looked at me, obviously wanting more of an explanation of my thinking, "well, if I was a dormant threat, in that moment when I was going to leak your secrets I was an active threat…" He nodded, contemplating my words and leaving us in silence for a few seconds. My nerves got the better of me and I ended up snapping, "oh my god! Just say something already."

He looked shocked at my outburst, but sighed as if he had resigned to do as I requested and talk, "we need you for something that our other… tech friend has failed at. See, you were able to decode our encryption with little to no effort, and so we need you to encrypt our files again with an unbreakable encryption."

I rolled my eyes, "there is no such thing as an unbreakable encryption, genius, but I probably have the skills to make a damn near unbreakable one." I nodded at my own words, confirming it in my own brain what I was saying, their encryption had been easy to break for me, but that didn't say much since I had basically dedicated my life to this, and it was the only thing I truly excelled in.

He just looked at me and I returned his look until it was like we were having a staring contest. A knock reverberated throughout the room and it was at that moment I noticed how tired Alexander Pierce looked, he sighed in frustration, "this is taking way too long," he muttered under his breath. "Come in," he said a little louder, and the door creaked open to reveal Hydra Asshole Numero Dos, or Rumlow as he is also known. It took me a second to wrap my head around the situation,  _when did he leave the room?_ My thoughts were brought back to the matter at hand when Rumlow gestured for Pierce to exit the room with him.

Pierce followed and for a while, I was left in the room with two guards. At first, I whistled to pass the time, but as the time grew longer, I turned around to the guards.

"Hey." I looked him up and down, but he didn't even spare me a glance or reply to my kind words. "Hello? Down here, shorty in the chair wanting your attention," he still ignored my words but looked at me with a cocked eyebrow, a silent question of whether I was going to continue. I stared at him defiantly until I heard a chortle from the other soldier.

I turned to him with a smile, this was my kind of guy, able to take a joke. "Don't worry about him, he takes his job very seriously." The other guard, I decided to call him Dopey for simplicity's sake. Anyway, he smiled down at me and offered his hand to shake, I shook it just as heartily as he shook mine.

"See Grumpy, I can be nice. For all you know, I might be your colleague soon enough." I stuck my tongue out at him and he just sneered but remained silent.

I heard another chortle from the guard, "So if he's Grumpy, does that make me Happy?" I coined his reference to the Seven Dwarves.

"Sadly, I already know someone I call Happy, so that would be confusing. How about Dopey?"

He looked a bit hesitant but smiled, "but if we are Grumpy and Dopey, what would that make you?"

I smirked evilly, "I am obviously Queen Grimhilde," my eyes glinting with the evilness of many a villain of a Disney movie.

He looked at me confused, "is that the name of the evil witch stepmother woman?" I nodded in response,  _this guy really needs to brush up on his Disney trivia, what if there was a pub quiz?_ "Well, I thought Snow might suit you better."

I scrunched up my nose at that in utter disgust and disagreement, "I am  _not_ Snow White, that wimp did nothing except be stupid and get herself killed by an apple. Then, even worse, she got saved by a prince who she had  _never_ met and only judged her on her beauty and nothing else - she could have been a maniac. In fact, what kind of person kisses a corpse of someone they don't know? Like, the fuck?"

At this point, Dopey couldn't contain his laughter at my rant, "most girls," he said between breaths, "would want to be the princess," his laughter died down and I just shrugged.

Then, an unexpected voice piped up, "you should be Snow, you let us kidnap us by stupidly trusting Alexander Pierce." Grumpy was looking at me and I scowled at him, "but then again you're not pretty enough to be Snow." This caused my scowl to turn into a full-blown death glare, a nervous chuckle coming out of Dopey who was probably feeling out of place.

Our conversation got cut off when Alexander came back into the room looking somehow different than when he came in. I couldn't place my finger on it, but he sat down opposite me again. "Now let's get back to our conversation, all we really need is for you to join Hydra and help us with things such as encryption and hacking and all that other technobabble I never pay attention to when you guys talk. I would ask if you wanted to but you don't have much of a choice." My death glare had by now shifted to Pierce, boring into his soul, he stared at me with an equally intense glare. There was so much staring that it could be a Twilight movie.

I smirked at him, oh how little he knew, "I do have a choice, and I am not helping you. Dormant threat my ass! I am  _never_ going to work for Hydra - well I won't from this point on since technically I was kind of working for you when I was working for SHIELD and you did also buy my software so… Anyway, the point is, that from this day," my hand jabbed the table to make my point, "I will  _not_ work for Hydra."

Another sigh came out of Mr Asshole (also Pierce), he gestured something to Grumpy behind him and I felt the cool barrel of his gun pressed against the back of my head, and Alexander Pierce leaned forward, really earning his name as Hydra Asshole Numero Uno. "Now, I'm going to ask you again. Join Hydra or die. It's a pretty easy decision, I think, what about you?"

I rolled my eyes, "kill me then," I sat back in the chair, pushing the guys gun harder against my skull. Screw Hydra. I sat there waiting for impact when a laugh came out of Mr Asshole's mouth. The gun was taken away from my head and I just glared at him.

"You really think we'd kill such a useful asset as you? No, instead, we are going to make you more  _cooperative._ " The way he said those words sent shivers down my spine. I gave myself a second to calm myself down and copied his sigh, leaning forward and looking at him.

"Well, I suppose that gives me no other choice than to join Hydra. What is it you guys say again?" I tried to think of what I had learned about Hydra from Steve, he hadn't divulged much as it tended to bring up sad memories when he thought about his life from another time but he told me a few things. "Oh, that's right, Hail Hydra. So what do you need me to do?"

Another laugh left his mouth, a cruel smile gracing his lips,  _how could I have ever been put at ease by this guy?_ "Oh no, you can't go back now. For all I know, you will plant a virus in our software or warn your buddies, the Avengers, to come get you. Instead, we have something very special planned for you."

I couldn't move, I was standing still, did they mean to torture me? But that still ran the risk that I would just fake being broken and plant a virus. No, they were planning something that would force my hand. But I couldn't think what, so a look of confusion morphed onto my face, this caused Mr Asshole to smile, "don't know what it is we're going to do? Well, it hasn't been tested on many people, and those few all had the super soldier serum in them,"  _wait, there were more super soldiers than just Steve?_ "But our scientists reckon you'll be safe, well, not to say it won't be agonisingly painful but you won't die."

My mind was reeling, what were they going to do? My brain couldn't think of it, I was just sat there, my brain trying to puzzle the pieces together. "Just for you," Pierce the Asshole began, "I will tell you exactly what we are going to do to you. We are going to wipe your mind, all of your memories gone in a flash. You won't remember Captain America, or any of the Avengers for that matter," he smirked evilly and at that moment I wanted to punch him until he was dead.

I muttered, "my brother," realising that I was going to forget everything made me want to throw up.

"You have a brother?" Pierce looked at me, no longer smirking evilly but more taken back by the information. Of course, he didn't know it was Tony, but my mind didn't dwell on his question for long, instead, I didn't even answer, the news hitting me like a tonne of bricks.

Tears welled up in my eyes and Pierce said something but it was muffled. I couldn't tell what was happening, I felt my body moving my tears blocked my vision and my breathing had started to become shallow and rapid. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see through the tears - I was going to forget everyone. I wouldn't remember who I was.

I must have been put back on the bed in my cell, I cried for what felt like forever, and when I woke what I assumed was the next day, my voice was hoarse and I couldn't speak very well - not that I wanted to say much.

When the door opened the next day, I knew they were doing it. As I stood, to follow the guards, I didn't argue or try to stop it. I just followed them into a room with a chair that looked more like a torture device than a memory-wiping device.

Without complaint, I was strapped in, and Pierce approached me I glared. That asshole. He got too close so I spit in his face. His face made me so angry, I just wanted to punch him in his stupid face, but my hands were strapped in. Nothing else made me feel, but my hatred for him would never die.

He wiped his face and grimaced, "just wipe her already."

These weird panels began to close in on my head, and suddenly I was in excruciating pain, a pain that felt like someone was poking through my brain with a white-hot poker. It felt like my entire head was going to explode. I might have been screaming, I couldn't tell, but the next thing I know, blackness is closing in. To escape the pain, I let the darkness take over and I was out.


End file.
